M A I N   N E W S

Where are the PoWs if not in Pakistani prisons?
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 20
Relatives of Indian prisoners of war today claimed that they have ample evidence about the existence of their loved ones in Pakistani prisons for the past three decades.

The evidence include reports emerging from Pakistani media to letters written by some PoWs to their parents.

— Radio Pakistan had reported the capture of Indian soldiers during the 1971 war and was widely reported in the media there.

— Former BBC correspondent Victoria Schoffield, while researching the circumstances under which former Pakistan Prime Minister Z.A. Bhutto was executed in 1978, in her book, “Bhutto’s Trial and Execution”, wrote that at one point of time Bhutto was confined to Kot Lakhpat jail.

Here, he openly complained of not being able to sleep because of horrific shrieks and screams at night. One of Bhutto’s lawyers later investigated the source of the screams and “ascertained that they were in fact Indian prisoners of war who had been rendered delinquent and mental during the course of the 1971 war.”

The reason that these PoWs were still in Pakistan, Bhutto’s lawyer found, was that the Indian Government would not accept these lunatics, who had no recollection of their place of origin, and so they were retained as prisoners in Kot Lakhpat,” wrote Schoffield.

— Former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto during the SAARC summit in 1989 had reportedly informed Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi that 43 Indian prisoners were there in Pakistani jails.

— Mohanlal Bhaskar, former Indian spy, who spent several years in Pakistani prison and later wrote a book “I spied for India” wrote that he met several Indian defence personnel during his stay in different Pakistani jails.

— Rooplal, the spy who returned to country after spending over two decades in Pakistani jail, claimed to have met several Indian prisoners in Pakistani jail.

— Letter written by Major A.K. Suri to his father from his cell in Pakistan.

“If they are not in Pakistan, then where else could they be,” asked Col R.K. Pattu, president, Missing Defence Personnel Relatives Association.

Pakistan Interior Minister’s statement that there were no Indian prisoners of war (PoWs) in Islamabad has evoked strong reaction from the families of the prisoners, who have been waiting for the return of the loved ones for the past 30 years.

Pakistan Interior Minister Tasneem Noorani has said “we do not have any such (PoWs) in our jails.”

“A total of 135 Indian nationals were found detained in different Pakistani jails. Not only that none of them was a PoW, but also over 70 of them were waiting for the Indian Government to take them back,” he said.

The minister’s remark comes within days of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf stating that he would look into the (PoW) matter. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee raised the issue during his talks with Musharraf in Agra.

Indicating that Pakistan would again check the presence of Indian PoWs in their prisons, Noorani said “if they (India or relatives of missing soldiers) have any clue they should pass it to us.”

Col Pattu said Pakistan radio had reported the capture of these PoWs during the 1971 war, newspapers in Islamabad had identified the capture of Indian prisoners, Western journalists who toured the Pakistani prisons had written about having met them, Indian prisoners released have narrated the presence of other fellow countrymen in Pakistani jails.

“It is for Pakistan to state what happened to Indian prisoners captured in war, where they are, what condition they are,” he said.

Stating the Pakistan faces a discomforting situation as it cannot accept the existence of PoWs in their custody, as it would tantamount to violating the Geneva Convention, he said “the families of PoWs are ready to accept their loved ones in whatever shape they are and whatever allegations are levelled against them.”

“Let them be labelled as spy, smuggler or any other terminology, but let them be released. They have already spent more than 30 years in prison. Even for a murder, the maximum sentence is 14 years and these PoWs have been in Pakistani prisons for more than double that period,” he said.

The most serious blunder of the then Indira Gandhi Congress government was that India should have retained at least 1,000 Pakistani prisoners of war till the 54 Indians in custody across the border were returned.

If India had only adopted such a strategy, New Delhi would have been in a stronger position in ensuring the repatriation of Indian prisoners of war.

With the fall of Dhaka in the eastern theatre of war during the 1971 Indo-Pak conflict, 93,000 soldiers and civilians working for the Pakistan defence establishment in erstwhile East Pakistan under Lt-Gen A.A.K. Niazi surrendered to Indian Eastern Army commander Lt-Gen Jasjit Singh Aurora.

As a consequence of this serious lapse the Union Government has to squarely “bear the responsibility” for the Indian PoWs still languishing in Pakistan even 30 years after the Indo-Pak war, emphasises India’s former High Commissioner to Islamabad G Parthasarathy.

He said there appeared to be a “series of evidence” in the form of letters with the parents of “services prisoners” or Indian prisoners of war in jails in Pakistan since 1971.

A pained Mr Parthasarathy told The Tribune that the traumatic issue of Indian PoWs in Pakistan had been subsequently taken up at the summit as well as various other levels.

He said: “We have always drawn a blank as far as the Pakistani authorities are concerned though it is no secret that there are some security prisoners, a euphemism for those held under the charges of espionage.”

Mr Parthasarathy said whenever India had raised the issue of PoWs at the summit and Foreign Secretaries level, Pakistan had come back and said there were no PoWs in that country.

However, it may be recalled that at the summit in Lahore in 1999 hailing the Lahore bus yatra, it was decided by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and his Pakistani host and counterpart Nawaz Sharif to constitute a two-member ministerial committee to look into the long standing PoWs issue.

This committee was to be at the level of Ministers of State of External Affairs and Vijayaraje Scindia who held the portfolio at that time was the Indian representative.

It was agreed that Ms Scindia would go to Pakistan with the family members of PoWs still languishing in prisons in that country. But the trip failed to materialise because within a few months of February 1999 Lahore Declaration the Kargil conflict broke out.

Mr Parthasarathy was of the firm opinion that considering General Pervez Musharraf’s positive response to trace the PoWs if they are still in Pakistani prisons, the families of these servicemen should be put on a services flight at the same time that Union External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh pays an official visit to Pakistan at the invitation of his Pakistani counterpart Abdul Sattar.

“We have not done enough for these traumatic families whose dear ones and in most cases the breadwinner has remained a PoW for an interminably long period of three decades,” Mr Parthasarathy said in an emotional vein.

He felt this issue of Indian PoWs should also be taken up forcefully with the Pakistan Human Rights Commission (PHRC). Mr Parthasarathy drew pointed attention to Brig Rao Hamid who had rendered yeoman’s service in this regard.