And the search continues
Families of the 54 servicemen who went missing in the 1971 Indo-Pak war are still looking for the truth about their fate. NIRUPAMA SUBRAMANIAN
ÒWe started out with mixed feelings. Some of us felt it was not going to serve much purpose But some were optimistic,Ó said Simmi Waraich, who was three when her father, Major S.P.S Waraich, went missing.
In the office of an Urdu newspaper in Rawalpindi, Ajit Singh of Hissar in Haryana finally found the answer to a question that had haunted him and his family for 36 years.
His younger brother, Captain Giriraj Singh, was at the Bhurey Jal forward post in the Chhamb sector on the India-Pakistan border in 1971. Pakistani troops overran the post on December 3, the first day of the India-Pakistan war. The 23-year-old officer was declared missing in action, but his family continued to hope that he was alive.
Earlier this month, the three-decade-long wait for Capt. Giriraj Singh ended after a retired Pakistani army officer told 68-year-old Ajit Singh that his brother had been killed in action, that he had fought valiantly and Paksitani soldiers had buried him with full honours near the post he had been trying to protect.
Breakthrough
The breakthrough came from a report in Jang, PakistanÕs mass-circulation Urdu newspaper, quoting an unnamed retired Pakistan army officer who had fought in the Chhamb sector in 1971 saying that he could give information about a Captain Jamewal and a Captain Dev Lal. When the report appeared, Ajit Singh was in Pakistan with 13 other Indians representing the families of 54 soldiers missing from the 1971 war. They had been invited by President Pervez Musharraf to visit jails across the country so that they could see for themselves that Pakistan was not holding the missing men.
The news report contained an important lead. Ajit Singh knew his brother had served with an officer named Jamewal. With the help of the reporter, the Indian visitors managed to meet the Pakistani officer, Major Tanveer Hussain Syed, in the Jang office.
The retired officer, now a member of PakistanÕs ruling party, narrated his recollection of a captain who emerged wounded from a bunker at Bhurey Jal and gave his name as Dev Lal before succumbing to his wounds. The description fitted Giriraj Singh. He also identified a picture of the captain. ÒMy brother had deliberately given a wrong name,Ó said Ajit Singh. But what clinched the matter was the majorÕs reference to two letters found on the young captain: one from his father and another from his sister, both referring to a defence housing scheme in Haryana.
ÒThat confirmed everything for me,Ó said Ajit Singh. ÒFor me, the visit has proved a success. I will return home with the satisfaction of knowing what happened to my brother.Ó
If anyone thought that Ajit SinghÕs chance discovery would lead to an acceptance among the other families of the missing that their loved ones may have met a similar fate, far from it. Instead, it told them that there were people who had information to share with them, and that their search had to continue.
After the 1972 Shimla Accord, India sent home 93,000 Pakistani prisoners of war, and Pakistan repatriated 650 Indian soldiers. At the time, it was thought to be the complete number. But 54 families in India believed otherwise and, since then, have waged a campaign to trace their loved ones. At various points in these three decades and more, the Indian Government too, by words and actions, provided them good reason to keep their hopes alive.
President Pervez MusharrafÕs invitation to these families to visit jails in Pakistan came in response to a request from New Delhi. Some families had made a similar trip in 1983 but to just one jail. This time, Pakistan said it was making an Òunparalleled humanitarian gestureÓ of access to 10 jails to give Òrelief and closureÓ to the affected families but asserted it was not holding any Indian prisoners of war.
As a result, when the 14 people Ñ wives, brothers and one daughter of the missing men Ñ arrived in Lahore, they were keen to dispel the notion of a search for Òprisoners of warÓ. They stressed that they were looking for 54 missing servicemen under any category of prisoners. The team members also made it clear that ÒclosureÓ could not be willed.
ÒClosure is not a word that we have ever used. We came here looking for answers, for the truth about these missing men,Ó said G.S. Gill, whose elder brother H.S ÒHigh SpeedÓ Gill went missing after his MiG-21 was shot down over Badin. According to him, there is ÒirrefutableÓ evidence to prove his brother and the other men were captured alive.
For instance, a copy of Time magazine of December 27, 1971, carries a picture of an Indian soldier behind bars. The wife of Major A.K. Ghosh identified it as her husband. A book on Zulfikar Ali BhuttoÕs trial and execution by BBC correspondent Victoria Schofield mentions that the Pakistani leader was jailed at Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore before his 1979 hanging close to a barracks with Indian prisoners of war Òwho had been rendered delinquent and mental during the course of the 1971 warÓ. During the prisoner exchange, Òthe Indian government would not accept these lunaticsÓ and they were left behind, the book says.
Precious possessions
Bharat Suri, one of the 14 visitors, has kept his hopes alive all these years with a 1975 letter. Handwriting experts confirmed it was written by his brother Major Ashok Suri, he said. Addressed to their father, the letter, with ÒKarachiÓ written on the top right-hand corner, said he was ÒhereÓ with 20 other officers, and asked him to make efforts to secure their release. The letter begins in the same way the officer began his other letters to his father: ÒAshok touches thy feet to get your benedictionÓ. Preserved in a plastic slip-case along with another specimen letter by Major Suri, it is among Bharat SuriÕs most precious possessions.
Damyanti TambayÕs constant companion since the war has been a yellow, crumbly copy of the December 5, 1971 issue of the Pakistan Sunday Observer. It tells her that her husband, a Sukhoi pilot whose name in the report is wrongl y spelt as ÒFlight Lieutenant TombayÓ, was one of five pilots captured alive.
Reshma Advani and Kamlesh Jain heard about their husbandsÕ capture on Radio Pakistan, while Suman PurohitÕs hopes rest on an anonymous message that her husband was alive. Ravinder KauraÕs family has kept its hopes alive thanks to the reported sightings of the missing captain by Indians who returned after spending time in Pakistani jails. Nirmal KaurÕs belief that her husband, Aasa Singh, is alive was reinforced when an Indian, who returned home in 2002 after serving a jail term in Pakistan as a ÒspyÓ, told her he had seen the subedar at a military detention centre in Multan Cantonment in 1991 and 1992. Jasbir Kaur has a copy of a letter in Gurmukhi from her husband Major Kanwaljeet Singh to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1980, asking her to secure his release.
GillÕs own hopes are pinned on the testimony of a Pakistani officer saying that he had been friends with an Indian pilot named Gill while in the Attock Fort military prison for his role in a conspiracy to overthrow Bhutto. The Pakistani officer, who was later shifted to Kot Lakhpat, said this to an Indian serving a sentence for allegedly spying in Pakistan. After his release, the Pakistani officer emigrated to the United States, where he confirmed to Gill through an emissary that he had indeed befriended his brother in Attock.
In Pakistan
From June 1 to June 13, accompanied by officials of the Indian High Commission and one from the Pakistan Interior Ministry, the group visited 10 prisons Ñ LahoreÕs Kot Lakhpat, jails in Multan, Sahiwal, Faisalabad, and Mianwali in Punjab province; Karachi central jail and Sukkur in Sindh; Adiala jail in Rawalpindi; Malakand and Swabi in the North-West Frontier Province. They met 49 Indian prisoners in Kot Lakhpat and five in Karachi, most of whom had already been identified and accounted for by the Indian High Commission in Pakistan. The visitors were given access to prison records, which they could not read, as it was all in Urdu.
ÒWe started out with mixed feelings. Some of us felt it was not going to serve much purpose. But some were optimistic,Ó said Simmi Waraich, who was three when her father Major S.P.S Waraich went missing. One person was confident that, at the end of tour, Pakistan would release all the missing men. But after visiting only a couple of jails, the entire team realised this was not the best possible search method Ñ it was unlikely that servicemen would be kept with civilian prisoners; and even if they were, it was unlikely there would be any records of their imprisonment.
Damyanthi Tambay was particularly convinced after visiting the Faisalabad jail. Some years ago, a Bangladeshi naval officer, in India on training, told her he had seen Flt. Lt. Tambay and other Indians in that jail during his own incarceration as an East Pakistan naval cadet during the war. The pilot had scrawled his name all over the walls of his cell, the Bangladeshi officer told her, adding that it was the first time he had seen a Sikh man. But the team found no records for the imprisonment of the East Pakistan cadets in the jail, and those of the earliest Indian prisoners in the jail dated to 1976.
The team members concluded they had to widen their search to military prisons and detention centres, even mental asylums. Especially after the fruitful meeting with Major Tanveer, they appealed to Pakistani, and to the general public, to come forward with any information about the missing men. ÒEvery kind of possibility is there,Ó Gill told the Pakistani media. ÒWe do not know where to find these people; we need your help and the help of the Government.Ó
Appeals
With a naivetŽ born out of faith, they also wanted the Pakistan Government to know that if it was holding the men, the families would accept their release without making an issue. ÒWe accept that mistakes happen in war. Pakistan may have a problem admitting that it still has the men because that would mean a violation of the Geneva Convention, but there are examples to show this has happened before,Ó said Simmi Warraich, citing the recent release by India of two Chinese soldiers, more than four decades after the Indo-China war.
The team appealed to the Pakistan and Indian governments to launch a thorough, Òcase-by-caseÓ transparent investigation that would take into account the leads collected by the concerned families over the decades. But a spokesperson for Pakistan said the Government had done Òthe maximum possibleÓ by permitting the visit. Pakistan also took the opportunity to reiterate that in its view, the Òbigger humanitarian issueÓ was that of cross-border civilian prisoners. Over 500 Pakistani prisoners were languishing in Indian jails even after completing their sentences, but India was not showing interest in activating a joint committee of retired judges that was supposed to recommend measures for the early release of such prisoners, the Government said.
Still, until the last day, the team hoped for a meeting with President Musharraf, a request they had made many times. Gill said the team would have liked to spend a Òfew minutesÓ with him to tell him that Òour proofs are realÓ. Had the Pakistan President granted a meeting, it may not have been as formal a conversation as Gill visualised. For the group, it would have been an opportunity to appeal directly to a man who said that, as a soldier, he understood the feelings of these families and empathised with them. As one member of the group said, they were prepared to Òcatch hold of his feet and not allow him to moveÓ until he said, Òhere are your men, take them with youÓ.
© 2007, The Hindu