DACCA, PAKISTAN. - "I fled with my family early in April," the man said. "I could not stand to be in Dacca any longer with all the terrible things that were going on."

Like many persons this correspondent encountered in East Pakistan, the fugitive cannot be identified by name or occupation. He fears for his life, yet is determined a foreign newsman shall hear his side of the story, to counterbalance the government version.

One senses there is an individual whispering campaign that many foreign visitors to East Pakistan are certain to encounter.

The indelible impression one retains, partly as a result of these unsolicited conversations, is that such cities as Dacca are in a mood of lingering, submerged terror.

One yardstick of the terror in Dacca is a school for girls. Formerly it had 1,200 pupils enrolled. Now between 30 and 50 attend.

"We left at night," the man continued, "my wife and two children. They are university students, and I was afraid they would be shot Also we are Bengalis, and Bengalis were being shot.

"We walked for two days and two nights, stopping to rest now and then. We had nothing to eat. There were thousands of others walking away from Dacca. Like us, they were heading for the safety of native villages." The village they headed for was in Comilla District, which is adjacent to the Indian border in eastern East Pakistan. This was Bangla Desh resistance area. Freedom fighter guerrilla attacks will occur there regularly. "For over 20 days we stayed there. Then we heard that Army troops were in the region, searching village by village and house by house for Bengalis and Bangla Desh sympathizers.

"HAD TO FLEE AGAIN"

"We had to flee again. I decided Dacca probably was the safest place. So we walked all the way home once more. I am a Hindu, but that first night back we supped in a Christian house. They were kind to us - and now I am thinking of becoming a Christian."

Such personal accounts as these have their variations, but the thence is always the same. They are ordinary people who have done no wrong, uprooted by terror of military or communal strife. Even today they are deeply apprehensive.

One hesitates to tell their story lest somehow their identity be traced and recriminations ensue. But one feels obligated to make their plight known.

As another man told me: "It is so senseless. You do not know who might shoot you. It might be a soldier who decides you were an Awami. League supporter. It might be a young Freedom Fighter who sees you are middle-aged and therefore assumes [correctly] you are unwilling to oppose the Army. Or it might simply be a miscreant who wants to loot your home or shop.

WHY DID THEY SHOOT?

"Why did they shoot innocent people - women, children, beggars in the street, firing at random into houses?" he asked. "If they are angry with the Awami League, why did they not punish the leaders instead of taking vengeance on anyone within range of their guns?"

The result, according to such informants is that today 20 million East Pakistanis still are hiding in the hinterlands. This is why the cities are thinly populated. They claim 6,000 villages have been burned, although nobody knows who vouches for these statistics.

It also is true, they insist,, that young boys are picked up in the streets by police or soldiers and seldom seen again. The belief is that their blood is drained to care for military and police casualties. The charge is impossible to confirm, but the same story recurs often.

"None of us believes what we read in the papers here. They are all the same. The papers are told what to print. Everyone listens to Air India Radio to get more information." they say.