Agartala (on the Indo-Pakistan border in Tripura), May, 19.
Indian and Pakistani troops have moved up to within 500 yards of the frontier at several points along the 1,300-mile border of East Bengal. It would seem as if the slightest incident could now start a full-scale war.

As this report is being written the Indian border security force at Petrapole, 50 miles north-east of Calcutta, is claiming that Pakistani infantry shelled the customs post with mortars today. Three members of the border security force were injured. The Indian say they did not retaliate.

However, Mrs. Gandhi and her Cabinet colleagues have apparently decided to adopt a militant attitude to force Pakistan to halt the exodus of millions of Bengali refugees who are pouring in the eastern regions of India and placing a tremendous strain on the country’s economy.

Addressing a meeting at Ranikhet yesterday, Mrs. Gandhi said that unless the situation improved India would have to consider “specific action”. Uncharacteristically belligerent, she warned Pakistan that “if a situation is forced on us, we are fully prepared to fight.”

The Prime Minister was voicing the fears of many members of the Cabinet that unless the intrusion is halted immediately, India will be saddled with a permanent and ruinous refugee problem.

According to the present estimates, India will have to spend about £100 m to feed 2,800,000 refugees during the next six months. Hoover, it is feared that the number of refugees may double and this would almost break India’s economy.

Many of Mrs. Gandhi’s Cabinet colleagues and the chief ministers of the states adjoining East Bengal have pointed out that the Indo-Pakistan conflict in 1965 cost the country only £25m while astronomical sums would be needed every year to cope with a permanent refugee problem. In other words the hawks believe that India will have to resort to a military solution and move into East Bengal to restore order.

The Prime Minister has rejected the idea of a military solution, but her speech indicates that the pressures are increasing. While both countries are undoubtedly bending over backwards to avoid a war, it seems as if the situation on the border is moving ineluctably towards a confrontation.

Both sides have ignored the “ground rules” agreed when Mr. Nehru was Prime Minister. These rules prohibit the stationing of military personnel within five miles of the border, but permit the Indian border security force and the paramilitary East Pakistan Rifles to patrol the frontier.

A press party of Indian and foreign journalists who were taken on a conducted tour of the Bangaon border post over the weekend was told by members of the border security force that Pakistani troops had advanced to within 400 yards of the frontier. The Pakistanis have apparently dug in behind a group of bushes and trees along the road leading from the Pakistan check post at Benapole.

When asked why the Pakistanis had not advanced up to the check post to lower the Bangladesh flag flying there, an Indian officer said: “If they come along that road they will be clearly violating the rules and my rangers will let them have it.”

The press party saw no Indian Army personnel during the conducted tour, but two days earlier I made a surprise visit to the same post and saw at least one patrol of Sikhs from the Punjab Regiment moving into positions in fields near the border.

India has about three and a half divisions stationed in West Bengal. Most of the troops have been billeted at the large Army centre at Barrackpore, 15 miles north of Calcutta and about 30 miles from the border. It is estimated that President Yahya Khan has four divisions in East Pakistan and at least one brigade group has been committed to Jessore and the border districts opposite Bangaon. There are also signs that a large detachment of Indian Army troops have been stationed here in Agartala, on the eastern border of East Pakistan.

In normal circumstances foreign journalists are prohibited from visiting the state of Tripura and Government officials who escorted the press party around refugee camps yesterday kept the journalists to a tight programme. However, Army despatch riders were seen passing through the town and reliable Indian journalists claim that Indian troops are training members of the East Bengali Liberation Front in camps nearby.

The border situation on the Tripura side of East Bengal is far more tense than at the western end. The Pakistanis are constantly chasing Bangladesh volunteers up to the border in hot pursuit. The Indian authorities claim that Pakistan shells killed three persons and injured 21 in an Indian village last Saturday.

After a four-hour drive to the southern tip of Tripura we, were shown Pakistan emplacements across the river Fenny, 50 yards from the border. According to Indian press reports, the Pakistanis have also moved up to the frontier adjoining Assam to seal off roads used by the Liberation Front.

Any serious border incident could have disastrous consequences. With the tenuous communications between East and West Pakistan, President Yahya could not hope to hold the might of the Indian Army in the eastern sector in the event of war. He would inevitably have to open up a front in West Pakistan and Kashmir to divert a section of the Indian Army from Bengal.