JESSORE, East Pakistan, April 3—An army division is holed up in barracks near here, surrounded by 2,000 East Pakistani fighters and about 500 members of the East Pakistan Rifles, a paramilitary unit.

As another shell is fired from the army barracks about half a mile away and another house crumbles, a Bengali volunteer fires a round from his rifle. The freedom fighters, as those who have taken up arms against the Government in Karachi call themselves, are also equipped with light machine guns and captured mortars.

The Bengalis know that the Pakistani Army, well equipped and, well manned, can break out any time. But the army commanders know that the division is surrounded by hostile Bengalis and dare not detach small groups; fearing that they will be overwhelmed and hacked to death, as happened to units last week.

However, the besiegers believe the army will make a three‐pronged attack when reinforcements are flown into Jessore airport, which is under army control.

But even if the major urban centers can be pacified, an extensive tour of the western regions of the province indicates that at best the authority of the Government will not run far beyond Dacca, the provincial capital.

Bengali nationalism has united every Bengali—police man, civil servant and the border‐ security staff. The police force has joined the “liberation front,” the border security force has opened the frontiers to Indian infiltration and civil servants and district magistrates are organizing guerilla warfare in villages.