LONDON: President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is hopeful that by the end of March or the middle of April, “I think we will have a dialogue with Mrs Indira Gandhi and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.” … On the question of reaching a “permanent and far-reaching” accord with India, President Bhutto … declared: “I will go in this spirit, but otherwise I hate to go to India. I was a confrontation man. I don’t want to go and see them grinning at me. But I shall go very happily,” he said, “because I think bigger things can be built and, if so, I don’t return in humiliation.”

Of the human problem of poor Biharis in East Pakistan, Mr Bhutto said that “in principle I would say they have every right to come here. I would like to see what can be done to bring as many as possible here.” The President warned, however, that “if we are suddenly saddled with a million more Biharis, there will be economic wreckage taking us back to the nightmare of partition — slums, shanty towns, men sleeping in streets”. … The Pakistan President asserted that four lakh Bengalees in West Pakistan “must be completely assured that none of them will be treated badly. …”

… Talking about the “raging issue of lifting Martial Law” he urged Pakistanis not to “make a fetish” of it. — Correspondent

Published in Dawn, March 3rd, 2022