Time

Graphic: photograph. Caption: Pakistani soldiers in retreat in East
Bengal "In the pursuit of jihad, nobody dies."

In any case, a cease-fire is not now likely to alter the military
situation in the East. As Indian infantrymen advanced to within 25
miles of Dacca late last week and as reports circulated that 5,000
Indian paratroopers were landing on the edges of the beleaguered
eastern capital, thousands fled for fear that the Pakistani army might
decide to take a pitched stand. Daily, and often hourly, Indian planes
strafed airports in Dacca, Karachi and Islamabad. Some 300 children
were said to have died in a Dacca orphanage when a piston-engine plane
dropped three 750-lb bombs on the Rahmat-e-Alam Islamic Mission near
the airport while 400 children slept inside. Footnote: Pakistan
claimed the plane was India's. Some Bengalis and foreign observers
believed it was Pakistani, but other observers pointed out that the
only forces known to be flying piston-engined aircraft were the Mukti
Bahini, the Bengali liberation forces. End footnote. Earlier in the
week, two large bombs fell on workers' shanties near a jute mill in
nearby Narayanganj, killing 275 people.

Forty workers died and more than 100 others were injured when they
were caught by air strikes as they attempted to repair huge bomb
craters in the Dacca airport runway. India declared a temporary
moratorium on air strikes late last week so that the runway could be
reparied and 400 U.N. relief personnel and other foreigners could be
flown out. It was repaired, but the Pakistanis changed their mind and
refused to allow the U.N.'s evacuation aircraft to land at Dacca,
leaving U.N. personnel trapped as potential hostages. The
International Red Cross declared Dacca's Intercontinental Hotel and
nearby Holy Family Hospital "neutral zones" to receive wounded and
provided a haven for foreigners.

For its part, the Pakistani army was said to have killed some Bengalis
who they believed informed or aided the Indian forces. But the
reprisals apparently were not on a wide scale. Both civilian and
military casualties were considered relatively light in East Bengal,
largely because the Indian army skirted big cities and populated areas
in an effort to avoid standoff battles with the retreating Pakistani
troops.

The first major city to fall was Jessore. TIME's William Stewart, who
rode into the key railroad junction with the Indian troops, cabled:
"Jessore, India's first strategic prize, fell as easily as a mango
ripened by a long Bengal summer. It shown no damage from fighting. In
face, the Pakistani 9th Division headquarters had quite Jessore days
before the Indian advance, and only four battalions were left to face
the onslaught.

"Nevertheless, two Pakistani battalions slipped away, while the other
two were badly cut up. The Indian army was everywhere wildly cheered
by the Bengalis, who shouted: "Jai Bangla!" and "Indira Gandhi
Zindabad! (Long live Indira Gandhi!)" In Jhingergacha, a
half-deserted city of about 5,000 near by, people gather to tell of
their ordeal. "The Pakistanis shot us when we didn't understand," said
one old man. "But they spoke Urdu and we speak Bengali."