Calcutta, June 13
India’s border security force has sent an urgent report to the Government in Delhi that the massive exodus of refugees from East Pakistan has suddenly dwindled to a trickle on major sections of the frontier.

A senior officer who toured extensive areas of the southern regions of West Bengal told me today that the exodus had ended in this section almost as suddenly as it had begun.

As many as 100,000 refugees have been crossing the frontier into India almost every day and many of the recent arrivals have come from Khulna by large river boats. They had been seen swarming into India for the past few weeks but the rivers were deserted today, a police officer told me.

“The border area in Pakistan is deserted. There is no sign of human life. We haven’t even seen a cow or a goat moving in this area”, he said.

Officials from border towns to the north also claim that the exodus has decreased dramatically. However, the reports apply to the 190 miles northwards from the sea on the West Bengal frontier. Reports from the remaining districts of West Bengal and Assam and Tripura have not arrived in Calcutta.

The divisional commissioner for one area said that it might be too early to say whether the influx had come to a permanant halt. “We have found that nobody comes across the border for a few days and then we have hundreds of thousands of people arriving in one batch. The Bengali has a herd instinct and he always tends to move in large numbers."

It is likely, however, that the Pakistan Government, acting under international pressure, has taken effective measures to seal the border to prevent large numbers of Bengalis from the interior from crossing.

The latest arrivals claim that the Pakistanis are driving villagers near the border out of a five-mile wide belt around the 1,300 mile frontier. According to the refugees, those without special passes are not allowed to move around in this area.

If this is the case, it would seem that the limited number of Pakistan troops stationed near the border have devised this drastic scheme. “It would certainly be difficult for refugees to cross a five-mile belt on foot without being detected by a patrol”, an Indian border scout told me today.

In the meantime, tension on the West Bengal border has increased again, with Indian and Pakistan troops exchanging fire yesterday and early today. A spokesman for the border security force said that Pakistanis had fired on an Indian patrol near Sadipur in Indian territory.

Indian authorities described the incidents as minor border skirmishes but said that, in view of the fact that two major forces were so close to the border, the situation should be described as “very serious”.

Hasanabad, India, June 13.— The great refugee rail-lift has speeded up, with several trains a day leaving West Bengal loaded with East-Pakistanis bound for a desolate area in central India. Some of the latest arrivals from Pakistan have bullet and bayonet wounds.

Two trains carrying 2,600 refugees have already left this station on the border of East Pakistan and a third was due to depart about midnight tonight with more than 1,000 more.— Reuter.
Death of a citizen, page 6