Relatives of Indian PoWs look to Musharraf as their last hope
By By M. Waqar Bhatti Karachi
Wives, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers of several Indian soldiers who went missing during the 1971 war are currently in Pakistan, moving from pillar to post in search of their loved-ones. In reality, however, they are dying to meet President General Pervez Musharraf to ascertain missing soldiersÕ whereabouts.
ÒWe have requested President General Pervez Musharraf to give us some time, as we consider him the only person who can help us. We will touch his feet and beg him to forgive our loved-ones as they have suffered enough for what they did,Ó says Nirmal Kaur, wife of Subaidar Aasa Singh of Indian Military who went missing in action during the 1971 Pak-India war.
But Federal Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao says that Pakistan has no Indian Prisoner of War (POW) in its prisons and detention facilities.
ÒWe allowed Indian families to come and satisfy themselves by visiting our prisons but we have no Indian PoWs. I personally think that relatives of missing Indian families only want to pacify themselves by visiting our jailsÓ he told newsmen at the sidelines of a ceremony in Karachi.
However, Nirmal Kaur strongly believes that even after 36 years of war her husband, Subaidar Aasa Singh is still alive and languishing at some secret detention facility in Pakistan.
ÒSeveral Indians who served jail terms in Pakistan told me, that they met a Sardar who asked them to tell his family back in (Indian-held) Jammu that he was still alive. For the last 36 years, me, my five daughters and two sons believe that their father will return home one dayÓ Kaur maintains.
Kaur said that she was inching towards death with each passing day owing to several ailments but wished to see her husband before taking her last breath. ÒMy eldest son also wanted to come to Pakistan but he was not given visa but I insisted to visit Pakistan alone in search of my husbandÓ.
ÒPresident General Musharraf is my last hope for finding out my missing husband. I would sit in his feet and beseech him to let my spouse go home. He and his family have suffered enough and now he should be set free for the sake of humanity,Ó she added.
Reshman AdvaniÕs case, wife of Flight Lieutenant Ram Advani, is not different from KaurÕs, as she too believes that her husband is alive. According to her, AdvaniÕs Canberra jet bomber was shot down by Pakistani ground forces in West Pakistan territory during the 1971 war.
ÒSeveral people in India heard on Radio Pakistan in December 1971 that two occupants of a Canberra, shot down by Pakistani forces have been captured as PoWs. Indian government says that Ram Advani will come back soon and so I personally believe that he is still alive. He must be 66 by now,Ó Advani claimed.
Advani says that her daughter who was born after four monthÕs of her fatherÕs disappearance also believes that she would be able to meet him. ÒMy daughter is happily married now but she is hoping to see her father who himself is not aware of her existenceÓ.
She reacted annoyingly to a comment by some Pakistanis who consider Indian families visit a political stunt, saying such people could not understand the miseries and agony of families who had not seen their loved-ones for nearly three and half decades.
Same were the feelings of Rajesh Kaura, elder brother of Captain Ravider Kaura, who claimed that his brother was captured by Pakistani troops in the Chhamb Jodian sector in Jammu and Kashmir and he is still alive.
Politics and Visa Counselor at Indian High Commission in Islamabad S.K Reddy who is accompanying his countrymen on their visits to various Pakistani prisons says, ÒThese people have traveled to Pakistan to locate their missing relatives. On the other hand, if these missing persons are not in this world, it would also compel them to end their futile search,Ó he added.
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Families come to end pain 54 POWs from 1971 left behind
By Amar Guriro
KARACHI: Rashman Advani, an Indian woman born in Sindh, has come to Pakistan from Delhi in search of her husband, Ram Advani, a flight lieutenant in Indian Air Force, who went missing during the 1971 Indo-Pak war.
On December 3, 1971, Ram Advani was flying an aircraft to attack Pakistan Army camps. He entered the airspace of Pakistan through Mianwali, Punjab, but was attacked before he could accomplish his mission and the aircraft crashed near Kushap, Punjab.
Rashman had married Ram Advani in July 1971 and had spent only six months with her husband before he went missing during the war. Since then, AdvaniÕs family members have been waiting to hear news of him.
ÒWe heard on the radio, during the war, that the Pakistani Army had arrested two Indian [armed forces] personnel, but we donÕt know where they were taken,Ó she informed Daily Times at a local hotel in Karachi Sunday.
Fifty-four Indian army personnel, who took part in the Indo-Pak war in 1971, have been reported missing. Their relatives claimed that the army personnel were arrested and sent to different Pakistani jails as POWs. The daughters, wives, brothers and other relatives of these men have come together to form the Missing Defence Personnel Relatives Association (MDPRA) and started a struggle to locate their relatives. From 1971 to 2007, they have approached the Indian government many times, but nothing came out of it.
ÒBoth governments held some talks, maybe, but we do not exactly know if our government has contacted the Pakistani government or held any diplomatic meetings, because it is not informing us [about it]. Even if they did hold such talks, I will not believe it till I find my papa,Ó said Dr Simmi Warach, a young Indian psychologist who came from Patiala, India, to find her father, Major S. P. S Warach, who has been missing since the war. ÒPapa was fighting on the border, against the 41 Baloch regiment, at 11DIF, and since then nobody knows where he went,Ó she said.
ÒTwo Indian army personnel, who were arrested by the Pakistan Army in 1991, at Kargil, and released in 1996, came to us and informed that they met my father and in 1998, Dr Mahandar Singh, another war prisoner informed that he met papa,Ó Dr Simmi claimed, adding that the family was frequently receiving information about him from different people. She was just two years old at the time of the war.
After facing much disappointment, MDPRA approached President Pervez Musharraf and requested help. He accepted their request and ordered the authorities to collect information on the Indian POWs, but nobody amongst these 54 Indian personnel was found.
ÒWe requested the Pakistani government again, to get a chance to visit the Pakistani jails, as we were not satisfied, and perhaps our loved ones were there under other names but we are thankful to President Pervez Musharraf that he accepted our humble request and allowed us to visit Pakistan,Ó said Rajesh Kaura, the brother of Capt. Ravinder Kaura.
In the first phase, family members of 14 missing army personnel came to Pakistan to visit Pakistani jails in search of their loved ones. They first came to Lahore and visited Kot Lakhpat Prison and met 59 Indian prisoners.
ÒWe did not find any of the personnel we were searching for and most of these prisoners were civilians and were too young, probably born after the war,Ó said Jasbi Kaur, the wife of Major Kawaljeet Singh Sandhu. She said that her husbandÕs right hand had been half severed long before the war in a grenade blast. ÒHe may have changed, but I can recognize him even after spending only a few months with him, as he went to war right after the wedding,Ó Mrs Singh said in a shaking voice.
The family members came to Karachi from Lahore, carrying pictures and other information of the missing personnel. One of the delegation members showed a paragraph from the book ÔBhutto, trial and executionÕ by Victoria Schofield, published in London, in 1979, in which the author wrote that the then prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was jailed in Kot Lakhpat Prison, told her (the author) that he was unable to sleep because of the horrific screams of the Indian prisoners arrested during the 1971 war. The participants said that this was more proof that the prisoners were jailed at Kot Lakhpat.
Damayanti Tabay, the 59-year-old sports director at Jawarharlal Nehru University, Delhi, was carrying a copy of a Pakistani newspaper, Sunday Daily Observer, dated December 28, 1971, in which with a three-column news item read that the Pakistani Army arrested five Indian pilots, including her husband.
ÒWe were married just one year before he went missing and since then, I have been waiting every second,Ó she said, as emotions started to take over.
Nirmal Kaur, the wife of Sobidar Nank Kaur, from Jammu Kashmir, has brought up five daughters and two sons with a small amount of money she received as her husbandÕs pension.
Suman Prohit, the wife of Flight Lieutenant Manohar Purohit, Dr B. K. Suri, the elder brother of Major Ashok Kumar Suri, Kamlesh Jain, the wife of pilot M. K. Jain and others were part of the delegation.
They said that their missing relatives might have changed their names after being arrested, on the hope that some day they will get released, or something might have happened to them. ÒThere is some misunderstanding maybe, or they may have changed their names, in both conditions, it is very difficult to locate them, but we will struggle till we get the final results,Ó said Dr Simmi, adding that they did not wanted to politicise the issue.
While talking to Daily Times, they demanded the Pakistani government constitute a ÒMissing in action cell,Ó as it existed in the USA and a separate file must be made to locate the missing soldiers. ÒWe are searching in jails, but if we are not able to find them then we will request the Pakistani government to let us visit the Pakistani defence establishments,Ó said Dr Simmi.
India and Pakistan, who both gained independence from the British in 1947, have fought at least six wars, including two major ones in 1965 and 1971. Hundreds of solders went missing during these wars and have not been found yet. The first test for their armed forces came shortly after independence with the first Indo-Pak conflict in 1947-48. They again fought each other in the Ôwar of the Rann of KutchÕ in April 1965, and then on August 5, 1965, a major war was fought. The fourth war was fought over the Siachen Glacier in 1984, and the last time they fought each other was in the Kargil war in May 1999.
Karachi
©Daily Times
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Indian delegation searching for POWs in jails arrives in Karachi
KARACHI: The group of Indian, who are searching for their relatives, who went on missing after the war of 1971 between Pakistan and India, arrived here in Karachi from Lahore, where they combed Kothlakpat Jail in search of their relatives.
The group is on a 14-day mission to trace prisoners of war they believe may be languishing in Pakistan Jail. However, the group did not found any prisoner of war in LahoreÕs prisons.
The group leader, G.S. Gill, while talking to media men upon their arrival in Karachi, said that they are grateful to President Musharraf and the Pakistani government for allowing them to visit the countriesÕ prisons for searing their loved ones despite the passage of 36 years of time after the war.
He said that they found 59 Indian prisoners languishing in Kotlakpat Jail Lahore but among them no one was POW. He maintained that they would visit Central Jail Karachi on Monday.
A member of the delegation, B.K. Soori, said that he had received a letter of his elder brother, Ashoke Soori, in 1975, in which he stated that he along with 20 other officers of Indian army were languishing in central prison Karachi.
The delegation also met Vice Chairman Ansar Burney Welfare Trusts, Sarim Burney.
Mr Burney appreciated the government move to allow the relatives of Indian POWs to search their loved ones in countries jails.
He assured the delegation of his full cooperation in their search mission.
The group will visit nine other jails during their stay.