1.
LV & CU Recruits marching in camp and halting before turning about (3 shots)
0.29

2.
CU & SV Recruits taking oath as Bangla Desh flag is raised (2 shots)
0.54

3.
CU & LV Recruits swearing oath in front of officers (3 shots)
1.09

4.
CU Showing varied clothing of recruits
1.10

5.
SV Recruits in physical training (3 shots)
1.28

6.
SV & CU Rice and curry distributed to recruits (4 shots)
1.54

7.
CU & SV Recruits eating
2.00



Initials ES.2253 ES.2314



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Pakistan -- and the first newsfilm of Bangla Desh guerrilla training operations in the movement's newest camp at Kazipur, just inside East Pakistan -- only a few miles from India. Shot by VISNEWS cameraman Durgadas Chatterji, it shows some one thousand young recruits, mainly Muslim, taking the Bangla Desh oath and starting a 15-day training programme before being posted to guerrilla camps for field training. Meanwhile, even as this film is serviced, tension along the Indo-Pakistan border grows daily -- with troops massing along the frontier, and army reserves on both sides standing by to support front-line forces in event of war.

SYNOPSIS: East Pakistan -- and as tension between Pakistan and India grows daily as the two countries prepare for war, thousands of young Muslims are volunteering to join the Bangla Desh guerrilla fighters in their struggle against the Pakistan Government. Here, at one of the newest training camps in the Kushtia district of East Bengal, just few miles from the Indian border, a fresh batch of recruits arrived for basic training on Wednesday. With the prospect of war looking larger, they swore allegiance to Bangla Desh under the breakaway movement's flag, and set about learning how to fight.

The young recruits are mainly from East Pakistan, and West Bengal in India -- a region which feels strongly sympathetic to the cause of Bangla Desh. The training is brief -- only 15 days. Then it's posting to a guerrilla camp, and a chance to apply their instant skills against a real and grimmer enemy. With the speed at which they work, the training staff here at Kazipur camp have managed to push through 6,000 young guerrillas in the three months sine they set up operations. Across the border, meanwhile, India's army reservists -- believed to number about six hundred thousand -- are reported to have been called up to boost the country's eight-hundred--and-twenty-five-thousand regular soldiers. Back in Pakistan, reports of further troop movements along the frontier, with artillery, mortars and rocket launchers supporting large numbers of infantry. Both sides claim neither really want a war -- unlike the young Bangla Desh guerrillas-to-be, who seem whole-heatedly in favour of a fight. They may yet have the chance to die for their ideals.