In 1971 he filmed Pakistani Army killings during the birth of the new state of Bangladesh, then East Pakistan. Phua's then correspondent on the assignment, Australian Don Hook, remembers: "From the roof of the Inter-Continental Hotel in Dacca, Phua shot graphic film of horrific events in the street below. Soldiers had deliberately set fire to a newspaper building. As newspaper staff ran from the blazing building there were bursts of automatic fire followed by screams and calls for help." Hook and Phua, along with other media people, were rounded up and forced to fly out of the country.