M A I N   N E W S

I SPIED
‘We were real-time & ferried vital info’
Jangveer Singh
Tribune News Service

Former spy Sunil Bhola, who is among the latest batch of the spies to be repatriated to India from Pakistan (December 2006), claims he gave this information to his Indian handlers in the Military Intelligence.

Sunil Bhola

“We gave this as well as other sensitive information and carried out important tasks given to us” avers Bhola adding the spies from this village could not be regarded as small-time border-crossers who had been used and disowned by the country.

“I was arrested when I had crossed the border in 1999 to bring back a Subedar in the 37th Division of the 8th Punjab in Pakistan army to my handlers in the Sambha Intelligence outfit”. Bhola claims during his 50 to 60 rounds across the border he was able to contact and deliver 20 to 22 Pak citizens, including those from the armed forces, to Indian intelligence outfits.

Ashok Masih

“We are the people who enlarged the network of agents on Pakistan soil”, says another former spy Ashok Masih. “And we did all this for a pittance”, he adds saying he himself was responsible for giving the precise locations of all units in Lahore, Sialkot and Shakargarh. “I also provided information on ammunition dumps located in the border area besides bringing in Pak citizens for recruitment as agents”, he claims.

Masih says the work done by him as well as other spies was on record with the intelligence agencies.

“They can access our work and give us compensation if they feel we have done a service to the country”, he adds. Masih, who started rebuilding his life after serving a seven-year jail term in Pakistan by running a vegetable ‘rehri’, is now working in a sheller.

Daniel

Daniel, who looks older than his 43 years, says he too helped the security agencies by bringing back people from Pakistan to the Indian side for recruitment as agents.

“There has to be some compensation for this work”, says Masih who like the rest of former spies of the village approached the intelligence agencies to get his due in monetary terms after he came back from Pakistan. “All my attempts were stonewalled”, he says. Another former spy Daniel says though the RAW paid his parents Rs 500 per month during his jail term in Pakistan, it refused to help him in any way once he came back.

David

Masih and Sunil Bhola are in the process of filing a case in the Delhi High Court through noted human rights lawyer M K Paul.

The case demands the former spies be given full benefits for their period of incarceration as well as money to rehabilitate them in society. The spies themselves feel they should be a one-time settlement or pension to help them live the remainder of their lives with the dignity they deserve.

Photos by Jangveer Singh