LAHORE: Indian military authorities in Assam are launching, in a few days, a concerted drive against Mizos, according to a report in Indian newspapers.

A full-scale military campaign has been planned for the area which is to last for two months during which time the Indians hope to rope in all the Mizos.

The project was given final shape during the recent visit to Assam of the Home Minister Y.B. Chavan.

However, Mizos have also become active and in clashes during the current month have killed 11 Indian soldiers and injured scores of them.

The Mizos are now using against Indian force the latest automatic weapons.

Agency adds from Rawalpindi: The Assam Government has extended the order declaring the entire Mizo Hills as “disturbed area” for a further period up to March 1, 1968, reports the “Hindustan Times”, New Delhi.

The report added that the Government had declared the district as disturbed area following armed action by Mizos in March 1966.

[Meanwhile, as reported by the Dawn-Express Service in Bonn, West Germany,] American military headquarters in West Germany have ordered an official inquiry into reports that an underground organisation is helping the United States soldiers to desert.

A Dutch TV programme filmed an American claiming to belong to the organisation which, he said, was made up of “Marxists, Trotskyists, Pacifists” and “members of different religious sects”.

“We take money from anyone,” he said, “to help men desert.”

He claimed that so far 500 US soldiers have deserted from West Germany while on week-end leave in Holland. Only ten per cent deserted on political grounds, the rest for varying reasons.

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2017