PAKISTAN REPORTED ATTACKING HINDUS By Arnold Zethlin

DAILY AMERICAN June 29, 1971.
DACCA. June 28 (AP). The Pakistan army attacked at least five villages within 30 miles of Dacca in the past four days, killing Hindu men and burning homes and markets in predawn raids, reliable sources said here, today.
The disclosure came after this correspondent arrived at one village, Boliadi, having passed an army column leaving the place and seen dead Hindu men and burning bazaar and houses. The commanding officer, who identified himself as Maj. Omar and refused to identify his outfit, called the operation a “routine patrol.”
For more than an hour this correspondent was in the village, he heard rifle fire, and saw columns of smoke coming from nearby villages which local Moslem residents said included Kaliakhair, Chapair, Kuripara, and Bhringraj, all within six mile radius of Boliadi, home of East Pakistan Moslem Chief Justice B.A. Siddiky. Residents said the raids started on Friday—the day after the arrival of a four member delegation of British parliamentarians investigating conditions in East Pakistan and India.

Boliadi residents said soldiers and men in the uniform of the frontier constabulary with the North-west Frontier in West Pakistan attacked the Hindu section of the village early yesterday morning. They said the attack, in an area which is in the Dacca district about 30 miles of an hour’s drive by car from the capital Dacca, started on Friday.
The correspondent saw a Hindu woman with a vermilion spot on her brow cradling a man said to be her husband who was shot in the neck. Another sari-clad woman moaned over the body of her husband sprawled nearby. Across a small creek in a tiny corrugated iron house lay the body of a white- haired man with a bullet wound in his back. Residents said at least five or six other corpses were in the village.
Asked if he had found any “miscreants”—the usual name for Awami League dissidents by government forces, Maj. Omar said his men were only on “routine patrol.” He refused to give other details.
He led about two dozen men in regular army uniforms carrying automatic rifles and ammunition boxes. Two men carried transistor portable radios and others carried goods wrapped in the cloth used for lunges, the skirtlike garment which is the traditional dress for farmers among Bengalis in East Pakistan.
A Boliadi resident said the army looted homes and markets before setting them ablaze. As they spoke, flames shot from the corrugated homes and market stalls. Heat buckled the sheets and burned the underpinnings, bringing the buildings to the ground with a crash. In one lane, a Hindu idol in bright yellow, green, and red lay smashed in three pieces.
Left were some women, some wailing in Bengali. “They liuvc taken everything.”
Moslems said about one hundred Hindu families—thought to be at least live hundred people—lived in the area. Most had fled to hid* in the tall jute fields or had taken to the nearby creeks and forests for safety.
The Moslems appeared untouched and many urged this correspondent to give "wide circulation” to the story. “See the condition of our Bangladesh" said, one English speaking student referring to the name of secessionist East Bengal. Many identified themselves as Indents who had fled from Dacca on 25th March, after the army cracked down against the now banned Awami League and jailed its leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
For the first time since March, this correspondent heard cries of “Shadheen Bangla”—independent Bengal—and “Joi Bangla—Long live Bengal,” slogans of Sheikh Mujib’s party.
Pakistan Orders Constitution
KARACHI, Pakistan, June 28, (AP), President Yahya Khan of Pakistan announced today he has ordered a “committee of experts” to prepare a new constitution and by-elections to replace disqualified Awami League’s members. But, he made clear, he had no intention of nullifying the December elections.
The President, in a 50 minute nation-wide broadcast, said he had appointed “a committee of experts” whom he did not name to draw up the constitution—the third for the Moslem nation in its 24 years of independence. He said the constitution would be based on Islamic ideology—“on the basis of which Pakistan was created and preserved”—and would provide “maximum autonomy” to the provinces.
But Yahya made clear that there would be no room in the new governmental set-up for the banned East Pakistani based Awami League, which had 167 members in the 313 seats National Assembly before civil strife broke out in the province in March. Nor did Yahya said anything about the fate of the 52 year old Awami League leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who was jailed on 26th March, a few hours after the Pakistani army cracked down on the East Pakistani political movement for demanding greater autonomy for the province—a demand Yahya seemed to concede, in part, in his latest broadcast.
Yahya said the provinces would have legislative, administrative and financial powers which he did not specify, under the new constitution. He also said the federal government would have similar powers in relation to both external and internal affairs.
Yahya stressed that the results of the provincial and national elections held in December and January would stand —although some Awami League leaders would be disqualified from their seats for engaging in “anti-state activities.” The vacancies would be filled through by-elections, the President added. “There is no question of holding fresh general elections.”
He said, “The mischief of a few misguided elements should not be allowed to nullify the results of the elections.” Yahya said he had “not yet finally assessed” the number of Awami League leaders who would be disqualified.