LAHORE: President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto today [Jan 13] expressed confidence that he would shortly negotiate with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman over prospects of having some sort of link between the two Wings of Pakistan.

He wanted the people not to take Sheikh Mujib literally in his recent pronouncements. When Nations, which were not on good terms had not severed their links with each other, how could East and West Pakistan think of a permanent and final break, he asked.

… Referring to the problem of food shortage in East Pakistan, and Sheikh Mujib’s appeal to the nations to rush supplies, he said Pakistan would do everything possible to help the brethren in Muslim Bengal. Pakistan was prepared to supply rice and even wheat and other commodities. … — Newspaper’s staff correspondent

[Meanwhile, as reported by a staff correspondent from Karachi] Dr Mubashir Hasan, Minister for Finance, Economic Affairs and Development, yesterday [June 12] called upon the businessmen and industrialists to voluntarily surrender their foreign exchange holdings otherwise, he sternly warned, the Government was determined to come down tellingly on the defaulters. Flying into Karachi especially … for a candid and unambiguous talk he made no bones of the fact that the economy was shattered.

Published in Dawn, January 14th, 2022