Pakistan: Goodbye & Good Luck

Source: http://www.newslaundry.com/2013/05/pakistan-goodbye-good-luck/

Human beings cut off ties with one another all the time. This not only prevents a fight-unto-death scenario, it also allows the adversaries to cool off and move on – go their separate ways.

The time has come for India to cut off all diplomatic, economic, cinematic and other ties with Pakistan. In perpetuity. Good luck and goodbye, Pakistan. May you prosper and may your people find peace.

I say this with a degree of conviction and moral certitude that our forefathers, barring perhaps Mahatma Gandhi, would have approved of. Let me explain.

Pakistan has a pathological hatred of India and the idea of India.

It was a nation created because of it. The creators of Pakistan abhorred India’s plurality. They disbelieved the assertion of many – including Gandhi – that Hindus and Muslims can stay as brothers. They doubted India’s assertion of secularism. No, they said, a time will come when our people will be under the boot of the majority. We want a separate land for our people.

The first speech Mr Jinnah gave in the newly created Pakistan was astonishing in its effrontery. He talked of how he wanted Pakistan to be a secular state! That’s right – you can’t bear to live as one in a secular state, but now that you’ve created your own nation – based solely on a religious conviction and unfounded fear of the majority – you are happy to believe that your newly-turned majority desires nothing else but a secular state where all minorities shall live in peace. Well, we know what came of it, the experiment that was Pakistan.

Pakistan has never been able to reconcile with the fact that an overwhelming majority of Muslims – whom Pakistan’s founders were supposedly fighting for in the first place – decided to stay back in India. This is a thorn that pricks Pakistan daily and will continue to do so.

Those who doubt the sincerity of Indian Muslims and forever taunt them and address them as “they”, forget this simplest of facts. A huge piece of land was created especially for them – “Come all ye brothers, to our promised land where you will never live under fear of the majority” – and then, when the time came, these very people, the Indian Muslims, ignored the call. Can anything else be more telling of the idea of India?

Pakistan has a pathological hatred of India because millions of Muslims decided to stay back.

The hatred became acute when Pakistan broke into two, of its own internal stress. A nation that was based on religion could not keep itself together to even celebrate its silver jubilee.

All history – right from the time of Herodotus – is contemporary when you factor in the fact that we read, assess and describe a few thousand years on a timeline of 13.8 billion years. What monumental folly! No wonder we cannot trust history and we fail to learn from it.

The cutting off of economic ties will not hurt India. It may hurt Pakistan, but if they believe it won’t then so be it. Our bilateral trade is minuscule compared to our trade with other countries.

It is, however, the cutting off of ALL ties, meaning people-to-people mostly, that divides opinion in our country, to the extent that we begin to label people as hawks and doves. We somehow believe it is not morally right.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

For all the unimaginable work that Bapu did for us, and the path he showed us, there were some blunders he committed that went on to condition us. The Mahatma, we must understand, had an unrivalled moral compass, more so if you notice the decades he was active in – Hitler, Churchill, Stalin, Mao, and Mussolini were his contemporaries.

I believe he was wrong in demanding that India pay Pakistan a chunk of money we owed them Rs 55 crore ($ 78.5 million today) even though it was certain that Pakistan would use it against India, in buying arms and expanding its skirmishes and not-so-contained battles over Kashmir. In any case, the two nations were at war when Gandhi demanded we make this payment.

The only man who stood up to Gandhi was Sardar Patel. I don’t know how to say this, and pardon my ignorance of history, but I am yet to find a blunder that Patel committed in all the years that he served India’s cause. I love Bapu and I like Nehru, but it is inescapable that the two made some astonishing mistakes. If anyone can list a single blunder of Patel, I’d be the wiser.

Those who say he was a right-wing fanatic know nothing! Patel exhibited the goodness of Gandhi but crucially, he did not let it – like Nehru did every time – cloud his exemplary realpolitik wisdom. In essence, Patel was an incredible student of history. People forget how close he was to Bapu – many a time Bapu told him to keep Nehru in check for he worried Nehru was getting too close to the Communists.

Patel was forthright in his objection to handing Pakistan the money. He went to Gandhi and told him so in as many words. But what can anyone do if the man he loves and admires decides to go on a fast-unto-death over the issue? What does a son do when the father blackmails? The awful dilemma of Patel – realpolitik versus Gandhi’s moral compass – is described in many books (Alex Von Tunzelmann’s Indian Summer comes to mind immediately). But the most objective description is in Joseph Lelyveld’s Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and his struggle with India. What does one do when the person you love asks something from you that you don’t want to give? In the end Patel backed out.

That was the first occasion when Pakistanis knew Indians are emotional people, that their every judgment from thereon would be clouded by emotion and the desire to feel good about taking the high moral ground.

We have suffered ever since at the hands of Pakistan. Not a day has passed when it hasn’t desired the destruction of India. Those who are old enough to remember the 1980s would recall how, when Pakistan was clearly fomenting trouble in Punjab, we gushed at Zia-ul-Haq’s arrival at the Jaipur test match. Even though we saw Pakistan’s intentions we wanted to embrace her, we wanted to take the high moral ground. This continued all through the 90s and continues to this day. The release of the Kandahar terrorists and their rapturous welcome in the streets of Pakistan; the 26/11 massacre; the LOC beheadings; the murder of Sarabjit…nothing will stir us into cutting all ties with Pakistan. Why? Because we think it’s not ethical and moral to do so.

But this is where we are so wrong!

India was one of the few countries which were unequivocal in cutting all relations with the apartheid South Africa. Those who say sports and politics shouldn’t be mixed forget that for decades we as Indians didn’t want anything to do with South Africa. It was even written in our passports, for crying out loud! Can any right-thinking person say that it was wrong on our part to do so?

Those who say that the overwhelming majority of Pakistanis are like us, good people, nice friendly people – why do they forget that the same held true for a large number of white south Africans, too? Were Nadine Gordimer and Dr Christiaan Barnard racist? But nations don’t behave like how their well-meaning people would like them to behave.

Apartheid continued for 50 years. The South African economy, based on diamonds, and gold, and mining and agro products, was one of the largest in the world during the time of apartheid, so much so that those who call themselves the upholders of morality and ethics now – the Western world – continued to trade with South Africa until as late as 1989!

But we were steadfast. And I am proud of that, proud that we can look Mandela and Tutu and Biko (if he was alive) in the eyes and say we stood with you, brothers, we were there right beside you.

We could have benefited a great deal from trading with the apartheid regime but we stood up for principles. Not all white South Africans were racist pigs. But despite that we wanted nothing to do with South Africa.

Why can’t we realise that the situation with Pakistan is exactly the same? Come what may, no matter how many Pakistanis think well of India, the pathological hatred that was the basis of their nation’s creation will make sure that Pakistan will use any opportunity to humiliate India, to bring her down, to break her.

I have nothing personal against Pakistanis. The majority of them are fine people and I have many of them as friends. But this is about our people, their continued suffering. It is time we took a stand, like we did against the apartheid South Africa despite losing out on economic trade and other ties.

We must cut all ties with Pakistan and be in no hurry to resume them until we are certain that the leopard has changed its spots. We must not worry about Pakistanis not being able to come and play cricket here. Did we lament when Gavaskar and Chandra and Amarnath couldn’t play with the South Africans? On the contrary, we were proud of them. Not so the case with the few West Indians who went on a rebel tour to South Africa in the 80s. They are derided to this day in the West Indies for selling out.

No, it’s much more than sports or Bollywood or literary contacts. It’s about two brothers realising reconciliation is impossible if one of them fails to confront the truth.

Pakistan, we wish you luck. Goodbye

Your’s Sincerely
Diljit C Shah
N. Gopaldas & Co.,
36, Chinnakadai Street.,P.O. Box 328,
Tiruchirapalli – 620 002. India
email: diljitshah@yahoo.co.in

Markandey Katju: Pakistan is a Fake & Artificial Country’

‘I do not believe that there are two nations, there is only one nation, that is India, and Pakistan is part of India. Pakistan was created in pursuance of the wicked British policy of divide and rule and the bogus Two Nation Theory’

Retired Justice Markandey Katju’s remarks about Pakistan generated lot of publicity for him which probably he desired all along.

His correspondence with former Pakistani foreign secretary Shamsad Ahmed, reproduced below, provide the necessary background into his views about Pakistan and his article published in the Pakistani newspaper articulates his thoughts on the future ahead for the two countries.

Correspondence with Mr Shamshad Ahmed and Editor of ‘The Nation’:

1. Email to Editor of The Nation

Dear Sir,

I am a retired judge of the Supreme Court of India and, presently, am the Chairman of the Press Council of India. I understand that you are the publisher/editor of the newspaper The Nation. I read online an article in your esteemed newspaper entitled “May You Live Long, Katju!” by Mr Shamshad Ahmed, former Foreign Secretary of Pakistan, criticising my views expressed in a speech given by me some time back in a function in New Delhi.

In that speech, I said that Pakistan is a fake and artificial country created by the British and their agents in pursuance of the wicked British policy of divide and rule and the bogus Two Nation Theory (i.e. Hindus and Muslims are two nations). In reality, there is no such thing as Pakistan; there is Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and NWFP, all of which are really part of India.

The purpose of partitioning the country and creating Pakistan was to make Hindus and Muslims keep fighting with each other even after the British withdraw from the subcontinent so that India (of which I regard Pakistan as a part) may remain weak.

When I meet my Pakistani friends, we talk in Hindustani and we feel no different from each other.

In my opinion, India and Pakistan will reunite in the next 20 years or so under a strong secular modern minded government, which will not tolerate religious extremism, whether Hindu or Muslim, and crush it with an iron hand.

I would like to send you my rejoinder to Mr Shamshad Ahmed’s article, if you are willing to publish it. I know it may require courage to publish my article, but the time has come when the truth must be told to people.

Regards,
Justice Katju

2. Email to Mr Shamshad Ahmed (former Foreign Secretary of Pakistan) :

Dear Mr Shamshad Ahmed,

I read your article in TheNation (February 26th issue) on my views about Pakistan being a fake and artificial nation created by the British on the basis of the bogus Two Nation Theory in pursuance of their wicked policy of divide and rule.

I would like to write and get published my rejoinder. In my opinion, India and Pakistan are really one nation temporarily divided, but which is bound to reunite in the next 20 years or so under a strong, secular modern minded government, which does not tolerate religious extremism and bigotry, whether Hindu or Muslim, and crushes it with an iron hand. 

Regards,

Justice Katju

3. Mr Shamshad Ahmed’s Reply:

Dear Justice Katju,

I just saw your message.

Let me tell you, difference of outlook on nationhood aside, I am one of your admirers. I was telling this to Shahid Malik, who is a good friend of mine.

In my view, you will serve your ’cause’ well by focusing more on bringing the two countries closer on their outstanding issues. On my part, like several of my Indian counterparts, I remain engaged with them on Track Two for reducing India-Pakistan tensions and helping them resolve their outstanding problems. I am proud of co-authoring the ‘Composite Dialogue’ with my Indian counterpart Salman Haider in June 1997, a process that in my view must continue purposefully to bring the two estranged countries together.

I am not sure if The Nation will publish your article. The media freedom is only a farce, not only in our countries, but also in West’s champions of free press.

I have been sending articles critical of American global policies and overbearing power-based agenda to Western newspapers. None was accepted. Even The New York Times and Washington Post are allergic to anyone else writing against American policies. More than anyone else, you know better the reality of ‘free media’ today. With more and more corporate conglomerates owning the news outlets, the media is becoming a commercial enterprise. They print what sells. This is the story all around.

I am not sure any newspaper in Pakistan will print anything questioning Pakistan’s raison d’etre. But you may try.

Do let me know if there is anything else I can do for you.

My best regards and good wishes to you.
Shamshad

4. Email to Mr Shamshad Ahmed:

Dear Shamshad Sahib,

There is no question of bringing two countries together when there is, in fact, a single country, India.

Pakistan is a fake country, artificially created by the British in pursuance of their nefarious policy of divide and rule and the bogus Two Nation Theory. Pakistan is, in fact, a part of India, and we will be reunited, maybe in 20 years or so, under a strong, secular, modern minded government, which does not tolerate religious extremism, whether Hindu or Muslim, and crushes it with an iron hand.

Your ‘Quaid’ was just a British agent, who was shamelessly furthering the wicked British divide and rule policy. The whole game of the British was that even after they withdraw from India (and Pakistan is part of India), our country should remain weak, for which it was necessary to divide us on religious lines and make us keep fighting with each other. It is time someone spoke the truth and, perhaps, it is for me to bell the cat.

When I meet my Pakistani friends, we speak in Hindustani, we look like each other and feel no difference between ourselves.

We were befooled by the Britishers into thinking that we are each others’ enemies, but how much longer must we remain befooled? I do not care whether my article (which I am working on) is published or not, but I will not deviate from what I believe is the truth. In Sanskrit, there is a saying: “Satyamev Jayate”, which means “ultimately truth wins”.

Regards,
Justice Katju

5. And finally, on Saturday, 2 March 2013, The Nation published Justice Katju’s article titled:

The truth about Pakistan

“Dekho mujhe jo deeda-e-ibrat nigah ho,
Meri suno jo gosh-e-naseehat niyosh hai.”

— Mirza Ghalib

According to reports, Pakistani cities— Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar, etc – are rapidly becoming killing fields, with bomb blasts and gun firing a regular occurrence, and ethnic violence between Sunnis and Shias, and persecution of minorities escalating. Nobody knows that when he steps out into the streets of these cities whether or not he will return alive. A beautiful metropolitan city like Karachi is becoming, if it has not already become, a Jurassic Park.

Mr Shamshad Ahmed, in his article, entitled “May You Live Long, Katju!”, published in The Nation on February 26, 2013, has said that the present situation in Pakistan is due to “a failure of governance, not of the nationhood.” I respectfully beg to differ.

In my opinion, the present violent strifes and disturbances in Pakistan are the logical and inevitable result of creating a theocratic state in this subcontinent and, hence, the only solution is the reunification of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh under a strong, secular, modern minded government, which does not tolerate religious extremism and bigotry, whether Hindu or Muslim, and crushes it with an iron hand.

To explain my point, I have to delve into history. As explained in my article, “What is India”, in my blog: justicekatju.blogspot.in (as well as in the video on the website: kgfindia.com), India (in which I include Pakistan) is broadly a country of immigrants like North America. The ancestors of 92 to 93 percent people living today in our subcontinent were not the original inhabitants here, but came from outside, mainly from the northwest (the original inhabitants being the pre-Dravidian tribals). People migrate from uncomfortable areas to comfortable areas, and India was a paradise for agriculture, with level land, fertile soil, plenty of water for irrigation, etc. It is for this reason that India has so much diversity— so many religions, castes, languages, ethnic groups, etc because each group of immigrants brought their own language, religion and customs.

Hence, the only policy that can work in our subcontinent is secularism and equal respect to all communities and sects. This was the policy of the great Emperor Akbar, whom I regard (along with Ashoka) as the greatest ruler the world has ever seen. At a time when the Europeans were massacring each other in the name of religion (Catholics massacring Protestants and vice versa), Akbar, who was far ahead of his times, declared his policy of Suleh-e-Kul, i.e. universal toleration of all religions, and it is because of this policy that the Mughal Empire lasted so long. It was Emperor Akbar who laid the foundation on which the Indian nation is still standing, his policy being continued by Jawaharlal Nehru and his colleagues who gave India a secular constitution.

Up to 1857, there were no communal problems in India; all communal riots and animosity began after 1857. No doubt even before 1857, there were differences between Hindus and Muslims, the Hindus going to temples and the Muslims going to mosques, but there was no animosity. In fact, the Hindus and Muslims used to help each other; Hindus used to participate in Eid celebrations, and Muslims in Holi and Diwali. The Muslim rulers like the Mughals, Nawab of Awadh and Murshidabad, Tipu Sultan, etc were totally secular; they organised Ramlilas, participated in Holi, Diwali, etc. Ghalib’s affectionate letters to his Hindu friends like Munshi Shiv Naraln Aram, Har Gopal Tofta, etc attest to the affection between Hindus and Muslims at that time

In 1857, the ‘Great Mutiny’ broke out in which the Hindus and Muslims jointly fought against the British. This shocked the British government so much that after suppressing the Mutiny, they decided to start the policy of divide and rule (see online “History in the Service of Imperialism” by B.N. Pande). All communal riots began after 1857, artificially engineered by the British authorities. The British collector would secretly call the Hindu Pandit, pay him money, and tell him to speak against Muslims, and similarly he would secretly call the Maulvi, pay him money, and tell him to speak against Hindus. This communal poison was injected into our body politic year after year and decade after decade.

In 1909, the ‘Minto-Morley Reforms’ introduced separate electorates for Hindus and Muslims. The idea was propagated that Hindi is the language of Hindus, while Urdu of Muslims (although Urdu was the common language of all educated people, whether Hindu, Muslim or Sikh up to 1947). All this vicious propaganda resulted in the partition of 1947, which created a fake, artificial theocratic nation called Pakistan.

Nation states arose in Europe around the 15th century because of the rise of modern industry. Modern industry, unlike feudal handicraft industry, requires a big market for its goods and a large area from where it can get raw materials.

The creation of a state based on religion destroys the very basis of a nation, because it cuts off industries from markets and raw materials. British imperialism created India as a big administrative unit. The British policy was to prohibit the growth of heavy industry in India; otherwise, the Indian industry, with its cheap labour, would have become a powerful rival to British industry.

When the British left India, they divided us so that we may remain backward and weak, and not emerge as a modern powerful industrial state (for which we have all the potential). This was the real reason for creating Pakistan.

I submit that Pakistan was doomed from its very inception; firstly, because there is such tremendous diversity in our subcontinent that only secularism can work here and secondly, because a modern nation cannot be based on religion (because this will cut it off from its markets and raw materials).
Mr Shamshad Ahmed has written in an email to me that I should try to bring the two countries closer, instead of challenging the very raison d’etre of Pakistan. I replied that I do not believe that there are two nations, there is only one nation, that is India, and Pakistan is part of India. Pakistan was created in pursuance of the wicked British policy of divide and rule and the bogus Two Nation Theory, whose whole aim was to make Hindus and Muslims fight with each other. I am confident that with time people, both in India and Pakistan, will realise the truth in what I am saying, and India and Pakistan will reunite under a strong, secular government that deals with religious extremism, whether Hindu or Muslim, with an iron hand.

Secularism does not mean that one cannot practice his religion. It means that religion is a private affair, unconnected with the state that will have no religion.

When I meet my Pakistani friends (and I have lots of them), we speak in Hindustani, we look like each other, and feel no difference between ourselves. We were befooled by the Britishers into thinking that we are enemies, but how much longer must we remain befooled? How much longer must blood flow in religious violence in Quetta, Karachi, Gujarat, etc.

Mr Shamshad Ahmed wrote in his email to me that he doubted whether any Pakistani newspaper would publish my article challenging the very existence of Pakistan. I replied that I did not care whether it would be published or not, but I will not deviate from what I believe is the truth. In Sanskrit, there is a saying, “Satyamev Jayate”, which means “truth ultimately triumphs”. And as Nietzsche said in Thus Spake Zarathustra: “What matter about thyself, Zarathustra! Say thy word and break into pieces!”

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All text courtesy Justice Katju’s blog Satyam Bruyat

Reciprocity in Attacking Each Others’ Prisoners

When it comes to reciprocity, there is no equal to the kind practised by India and Pakistan with each other. No wonder, because it requires a special talent to mirror hostility in such a perfectly choreographed manner. The attack on prisoner Sanaullah Haq in Jammu’s Kot Bhalwal jail that sent him into a coma and led to his eventual death from multi-organ failure was part of the endless tit-for-tat that the two countries end up playing with each other. That it was a fellow prisoner who assaulted him in retaliation for the killing of Sarabjit in Pakistan by inmates does not exonerate Indian officialdom. In fact, it is unforgivable that even after there was an alert across jails to ensure no revenge attacks on Pakistani prisoners, the Jammu attack could not be prevented. The jail superintendent and other officials have rightly been suspended, and an inquiry has been ordered.

Even so, the incident has exposed India as a country that still has to grow up, and that despite its eagerness to pretend otherwise, suffers from some of the same dysfunctionalities as its western neighbour.

In keeping with the pattern, Pakistan gave a state funeral to Sanaullah, a Harkat-ul-Ansar militant convicted and sentenced to life for two bomb blasts in Kashmir, to match the one given Sarabjit, convicted for bomb blasts that killed 14 people in Pakistan.

None of this reciprocal madness gives much hope for the future of India-Pakistan relations.

Until now, tit-for-tat hostility was practised only by officials on both sides, sometimes targeting each other’s diplomats for surveillance, attacks or expulsion, at other times targeting ordinary people, as for instance by denying them visas or harassing them in other ways.

What is worrying about the Sanaullah incident is that people-to-people relations are also on their way to getting tainted in the same way, and officials are allowing this to happen. A section of khadims at the Ajmer dargah said they would not permit Pakistani pilgrims to attend the urs. Shockingly, New Delhi also recommended to Pakistan that the pilgrimage be called off as after the Sarabjit incident, it could not ensure the security of travellers from across the border. Going by this, next it will be the turn of the Sikh jathas who go on pilgrimages to gurudwaras in Pakistan to face a similar situation. Before it comes to that, the cycle of nastiness has to be broken.

Telling Pakistani pilgrims that they are welcome to come to Ajmer would be a good place to begin. And there’s no need to demand reciprocity.

Convicted Indian spy Sarabjit Singh suffered severe injuries in the head when some suspects attacked him when he left his barracks for strolling in Kot Lakhpat jail on April 26, 2013. Singh was admitted to the ICU of the Jinnah Hospital where a medical board comprising senior neurosurgeons was treating him. He later died.

The suspects attacked Singh when he left his barracks for strolling. They assaulted him with bricks and other blunt weapons and left him seriously injured. The reason behind the incident could not be immediately ascertained.

Profusely bleeding, Singh was initially moved to the surgical emergency of the Jinnah Hospital.

Sarabjit was received with several deep head injuries and he was unconscious. He was wearing a police trouser and casual shirt when shifted to the emergency. Keeping in view the deteriorating condition of the patient an endotracheal tube had been placed into the trachea (windpipe) to help him breathe artificially. After initial treatment in the emergency unit, Singh had been shifted to the main ICU and put on ventilator.

In September 2012, Singh had written a letter to his sister and daughters, alleging that the jail authorities were slow-poisoning and mentally torturing him.

Quoting the prosecution, the official said Singh had illegally crossed into Pakistan on Aug 29, 1990. He was arrested on charges of carrying out four bombings in Faisalabad, Multan and Lahore and was later sentenced to death.

Preneet Kaur, Indian Minister of State for External Affairs, has said that “it is deplorable that this attack took place. The Indian High Commission has sought consular access. As soon as we get a response, we will act”. Two officials from the Indian embassy have rushed to Lahore from Islamabad. Pakistan Foreign Office in a statement said it would investigate the incident.

Sarabjit’s sister Dalbir Kaur has said: “I had told everybody he is not safe. This is a conspiracy. The attack was pre-planned.”

The Kot Lakhpat jail currently has some 17,000 prisoners though its official capacity is only 4,000. There have been instances in the past of prisoners being killed within the prison.

Authorities had tightened Singh’s security after the recent execution in India of Afzal Guru, who was convicted of involvement in the 2001 terror attack on the parliament.

Singh’s mercy petitions were rejected by courts and former President Pervez Musharraf. The outgoing PPP-led government put off Singh’s execution for an indefinite period in 2008.

Just a few months back, an Indian prisoner died in mysterious circumstances at the same Kot Lakhpat prison. He was allegedly inhumanely beaten to death for committing the ‘crime’ of washing his clothes at a public tap at the courtyard of the jail. India alleges that the jail authorities did not request the hospital authorities to conduct an autopsy for almost two months. Even after the autopsy the report has still not been presented.

The Lahore High Court refused to entertain a petition for the inquiry into the mysterious death of the prisoner on the pathetic argument that the lawyer did not have power of attorney from the victim’s family (who are in India). This is contradictory to the fact that the higher courts take so moto actions on political cases without obtaining ‘power of attorney’ to gain popularity in the media.

He was represented by Mr. Awais Shiekh who acted on behalf of the victim, following reports published in the Daily Express Tribune.

Chamail Singh, son of Salaar Singh, (48), a resident of Targwal Khalkay village, Akhnoor tehsil, in Jammu, India, was imprisoned on spying charges after a military trial sentenced him in June 2012. At the time of his death he was nearing the end of his sentence of five years due to time served. Singh was tried by a military court in Sialkot, Punjab, under section 59 of the Pakistan Army Act 1951 for spying and imprisoned.

Mr. Tehseen Khan, a lawyer by profession, who was released just three days after Chamail Singh’s death, told the Express Tribune, on 18 January that he witnessed Singh’s killing. He said that that at 7:45am on 15 January Singh was washing his clothes at a tap in the jail’s courtyard when Assistant Superintendent of Jail (ASJ) Nasir Nawaz with two chakar imdadis or hawaldars, Muhammad Sidique and Muhammad Nawaz, stopped him.

The ASJ asked him “does he think the jail is his home where he can wash his clothes wherever he wants?” The officials also taunted him saying how an Indian spy enjoys himself after working against Pakistan. The agents should not have such facilities. They also used some filthy and derogatory words against Indians, Khan told the newspaper.

When Singh responded, the hawaldars started beating him on the orders of the ASJ. The ASJ himself allegedly pounded Singh with his fists. Kicks by the others drew blood from Singh’s upper lip and brow. The newspapers quoted Tehseen as saying that the three men continued to beat him for a full minute, at the end of which he was dead. The jailors then dispatched Singh’s body to the jail hospital.

In desperation to hide their crime, the jail authorities took affidavits on plain paper from eight prisoners, all Indian nationals, that his death was natural. This was done in the absence of a magistrate which is a legal requirement. According to Express Tribune (ET) the affidavits state that Singh lit a cigarette after washing his clothes and died of natural causes. Later on his body was shifted to Jinnah Hospital where it was kept for almost two months in the morgue. No autopsy was conducted and the Punjab provincial government tried to cover up the whole incident.

The autopsy of the body was finally conducted on 13 March two months after his death but the report has not yet surfaced despite the fact that it was announced that report will come out on or before 25 March. The Federal Investigating Agency (FIA) and other agencies have confirmed that Singh was tortured to death. The newspaper received the initial report from the hospital that “traces of four injuries were found on Singh’s body including a fracture in the right knee joint, an abrasion on his upper lip and injuries on his thigh.

By delaying Singh’s post-mortem report, the Kot Lakhpat prison authorities tried to hide the marks of injuries on his body caused by the beating, advocate Awais Sheikh, who works as a counsel for Indian prisoners in Pakistan, told ET.

After publication of the news in ET, the same lawyer filed a petition in the High Court of Lahore for an inquiry into the death of an Indian prisoner by torture. The High Court immediately turned downed the petition on the grounds that the lawyer does not have power of attorney from Singh’s family. This was a clear effort by the High Court to save the provincial rulers from any embracement due to the case. The provincial government of Sharif has also not taken any action to probe the incident although ET has been continuously publishing follow ups of the incident since 28 January.

Tibetans Fought as Mukti Bahni in 1971 in East Pakistan

Tibetan Brigadier Ratuk  Brigadier Ratuk who is now 84 years old living in ‘Majno Cottila’ situated in “Tibet Colony” New Delhi, states that his secret gorilla force was not part of regular Indian army however they were under command of Indian army and Indian General Pabun was their Commander. The initial name of Ratuk’s army was ‘Voluntary Freedom Fighter Force’ but after 1962 Sino-Indian war it was renamed as ‘Tibetan Secret Regiment’. In order to avoid objection from Chinese side for armed interference into China this terrorist force of India was renamed as ‘Special Frontier Force’. Its Head Quarter was in ‘Dehradhun’ in Uttar Paradesh.

Brigadier Ratuk says that when he was ordered to send his force to Eastern Pakistan to fight against Pakistan he was shocked because his only target was freedom of Tibet from China and secret war/ terrorism against China , so he denied to wage secret war/terrorism in East Pakistan.

When Dalai Lama’s elder brother Gyalo Thondap ordered them to help India in this war he got ready because Gyalo deceived him that if he (Ratuk) helps India in war against Pakistan than Indian army would help them to defeat Chinese army in Tibet.

After this approximately 2000 Bengali were brought into the camp and he was told that these are men of Mukti Bahni and will support his force in Gorilla war against Pak-Army in Eastern Pakistan . When these Tibetan militants entered into the Bengal they learned that Bengali traitors were not trained enough to fight against Pak army however they proved to be worthy guides because Tibetan terrorists were not aware of ground routes and installations of Pakistan army.

Brigadier Ratuk further claims that they (his Tibetan terrorists) waged war against Pakistan disguised as Mukti Bahni and the world was being deceived that Mukti Bahni is a force of freedom fighters fighting for freedom against Pakistan . Ratuk says that this is the most clear lie of history; the actual war was fought by his men, Indian army was brought in when Indians were assured that Pakistan army has been badly hurt and Pakistan army was isolated on the international level through successful/influential propaganda even that Pakistanis themselves were feeling ashamed for the stories of war crimes of Pak Army.

The biggest proof of our (Brigadier Ratuk & his force) success against Pak Army is that when we (Tibetans) reinforced our control over Chitagong, Special Advisor for Indira Gandhi and most trusted officer of Indian Secret Agency ‘Mr. R.N. Kao’ specially visited and acknowledged that without your (Tibetan terrorists) support Indian army would never had been able to achieve such a big success in East Pakistan.

The confession of Brigadier Ratuk should be sufficient to open our eyes that East Pakistan was separated from us through a big conspiracy.

However if our Pro-Indian intellectuals and Aman Ki Asha brand Journalist beat their old triumphant even after discovery/ disclosure of reality of Mukti Bahni that Pakistan army gang raped Bengali women, and was involved in heinous crime of genocide than I would like to question them that in Tribal Areas from last ten years Pakistan army is fighting against terrorists and successful operations are being conducted than why in spite of slaughtering of kidnapped soldiers (by terrorists) and the number of casualties of armed forces in thousands why not a single incident of rape or intentional killing of innocents have been reported/proved?

And in Balochistan these operations are going even before our maturity than why no such incident has been brought forward except the case of Dr. Shazia employed in a hospital that was allegedly raped by a Captain but when army investigations were started all those (including the target of rape) who wrote this propaganda story to   defame Pakistan  army fled to London so that actual facts could not be revealed through investigations.

However, in spite of the disclosure of reality of Mukti Bahni, Hamid Mir wants that Pakistan should apologize from Bangladesh (for the crimes of Indian terrorists)?

If these pro-Indian elements are stuck to their demands that Pakistan should apologize from Bangladesh with regard to 1971 and Mujeeb is a hero for them than would they like to inform nation that why Mujeeb and his family was murdered by his own Bangladeshi army, not by one or two soldiers but by the whole Regiment; why did army murder their hero along with his family?

Pakistan Cannot Afford to Compete with India Whose Economy is 9 Times Bigger

An Aesopian nuclear competition is under way between Pakistan and India.

Pakistan, whose economy and domestic cohesion are steadily worsening, is the hare, racing to devote scarce resources to compete with a country whose economy is nine times as great. India is the tortoise: Its nuclear program is moving steadily forward without great exertion.

The tortoise will win this race, and could quicken its pace. But the hare continues to run fast, because nuclear weapons are a sign of strength amid domestic weaknesses and because it can’t keep up with the growth of India’s conventional military programs.

At present, there is rough nuclear parity between India and Pakistan, with Pakistan having a larger arsenal and India having more advanced air- and sea-based capabilities. Both countries are expanding their capacity to produce bomb-making material, adding cruise missiles to their arsenals and planning to send nuclear weapons to sea. Pakistan’s arsenal now exceeds 100 warheads. India is not too far behind.

India, like China, has adopted a relaxed approach to nuclear deterrence. In both countries, national security is equated with strong economies and domestic cohesion. Indian and Chinese leaders value nuclear weapons as expressions of national will and power, rather than as military instruments.

As befitting the home of Mahatma Gandhi, Indian political leaders have great ambivalence about nuclear weapons. They seek the moral high ground while attending to national security imperatives. No other country has waited 24 years between testing its first and second nuclear devices.

In Pakistan, the situation is starkly different. Economic growth is hobbled, foreign reserves are dwindling and the country is plagued by bloodletting. Decisions about nuclear requirements are made by a few generals who view these weapons as a military necessity as well as a political instrument. In Pakistan, political leaders take their guidance from generals. In India, the requests of military leaders often land on deaf ears.

Pakistan’s nuclear requirements were set high initially, and grew higher still after the George W. Bush administration agreed to cooperate with India to build nuclear power plants. This civil-nuclear agreement has languished, while Pakistan’s military-nuclear programs have ramped up.

After testing nuclear weapons in 1998, Indian and Pakistani authorities embraced a doctrine of minimal, credible deterrence. Now the word “minimal” applies less and less, as their stockpiles have doubled over the past decade. There is little chance that Pakistan and India will end fissile material production for bombs anytime soon.

Pakistan’s nuclear weapons can be used to warn India not to advance on Pakistani territory. Its military doctrine has recently embraced short-range, tactical nuclear weapons to counter India’s conventional military advantages. At the high end of the targeting spectrum, Pakistan’s military appears intent to deny India victory in warfare and to destroy it as a functioning society in the event of a complete breakdown in deterrence.

Slowing this trajectory will be difficult. Nuclear weapons are widely perceived in Pakistan as the nation’s crown jewels. Most Pakistanis begrudge governmental corruption and incompetence, but not money spent on The Bomb, which has been imbued with great powers, including the power to keep India at bay and to lift Pakistan onto the world’s stage.

Finding stability in this competition will be difficult, in part because China weighs heavily in Indian calculations and because civil-military relations in Pakistan are so unbalanced. Fifteen years and two major crises have passed since India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in 1998 — and they still haven’t engaged in serious, sustained nuclear risk-reduction talks.

What might change Pakistan’s calculation that more nuclear weapons equates to more security? One way is for New Delhi to take dramatic steps to improve relations and to “take away the enemy image,” similar to what Mikhail Gorbachev accomplished when he was leader of the Soviet Union in his dealings with the United States.

There is, however, little appetite within India for bold steps to reinforce the obvious need of the Pakistani Army to focus on internal security threats. Another potential game changer is severe perturbations in Pakistan’s economy. Economic upheavals would, however, create even more domestic instability without changing the Pakistan military’s dependency on The Bomb.

The safest route to reduce nuclear dangers on the subcontinent is through concerted efforts to improve relations between Pakistan and India. The surest way to do so is by greatly increasing cross-border trade. Leaders in both countries have endorsed this course of action, but underlings are moving slowly ahead of national elections. Even modest progress can be stopped short by another mass-casualty attack on Indian soil designed to disrupt improved ties.

A nuclear arsenal built on very weak economic foundations is inherently unstable, which is reason enough for India to pursue sustained and accelerated trade and investment opportunities with Pakistan. These methods, which have dampened tensions between China and Taiwan, could also serve a similar purpose on the subcontinent.

Michael Krepon is co-founder of the Stimson Center, a think tank, and director of its South Asia and Space Security Programs.

 

Pakistan’s Army Concluded That If It Could Get Away With Bombay, It Could Get Away With Anything

The habit of bending over backwards

by MJ Akbar 

As a conundrum, this one is hard to beat, possibly because it is uniquely Indian.

Why has appeasement of hardliners in Pakistan, an avowedly communal state carved out of the two-nation theory, become a touchstone for secularism in India? If this were limited to an irony it would doubtless find its level in the varied folds of public discourse. As an artful strategy to legitimize the present UPA government’s weak knees, it has more disturbing implications.

The subtext is subtle. There are only two sides to this coin of Manmohan Singh’s realm: accommodation or war, a nonsense familiar to historians of Europe between the first two world wars. An ultimatum is the last resort, not the first one; and there are many stages in-between, as President Obama’s policy towards Iran, for instance, indicates. But in the dictum laid down by Delhi, you either accept Pakistan’s token verbiage, or risk derision as a hawk.

Pakistan’s hard line towards India is held by the Army, which takes the final call on India, whether in strategic planning or real-time response. Its thinking is rooted in Partition. India won freedom from the British. Pakistan won independence from India. Pakistan’s fundamentalist patriots therefore locate the existentialist threat from India. Expand or manouvre the matrix and a man wanted across the world for terrorism, Hafiz Saeed, gets transformed into a commander of the faithful doing his duty in a holy war on Mumbai. Does this make dialogue impossible? No. But it makes it more complex.

Singh, backed firmly by Sonia Gandhi, has no use for complications. He bends in the hope that one more storm will pass over. But between Pakistan’s intransigence over terrorism, his own capitulation at Sharm el Sheikh within nine months of Mumbai, a succession of Pakistan officials who taunt India on Indian soil, and the mutilation of two Indian soldiers this week along the Rampur-Haji Ali sector, Dr Singh seems to have bent so far that he looks prostrate.

The ceasefire line across Jammu and Kashmir is a misnomer. It is always on fire. Lives are lost periodically in the tension of conflicting responsibilities, as India guards itself from the enemy without and insurgents within. But some instances are intended to send a larger signal. The gruesome killing of Lance Naiks Hemraj Singh and Sudhakar Singh was one such message.

Singh’s answer was to pull out the most tired clichés from the store. The Pakistan high commissioner Salman Bashir was “summoned” and told that barbarism was “unacceptable” over a nice cup of tea. Bashir dismissed India’s accusations with contempt. His boss, foreign minister Hina Rabbani, used two words where her Indian counterpart used one, calling India’s allegations “absolutely unacceptable”.

Examine Pakistan’s version of events. Islamabad claims India started the firefight on January 6 in which one of its soldiers was killed and another seriously wounded. Pakistan did not summon India’s high commissioner for coffee and photographs. It sent the 29 Baloch Regiment to extract two eyes for one. When India asked for an enquiry, Pakistan told India to jump – into the arms of the United Nations. Pakistan marshaled its array of diplomats to supplement action in the field. Dr Singh ordered Indian diplomats and armed forces to freeze and “de-escalate”.

Islamabad took the measure of Delhi in 2009 at Sharm el Sheikh, when, despite the international outrage over Mumbai and evidence of Pakistan’s involvement, it was Singh who made extraordinary concessions to put together a joint statement. The text was not shown to India’s National Security Adviser, M K Narayanan, who went ashen when he read the contents a little before it was released to media. Narayanan’s silence was purchased with a ghostly residence in Calcutta, also known as the Raj Bhavan.

Pakistan’s Army Concluded That If It Could Get Away With Bombay, It Could Get Away With Anything. It Has.

Pakistan’s generals have measured the Singh government’s girth, and discovered a circumference bloated by hot air. They know that the only reaction from hot air can be flatulence. They’ve the evidence they need. There were 57 cross-border violations by Pakistan in 2010, 60 in 2011 and 117 in 2012. Delhi’s response has been a private, and sometimes public, campaign to reduce our forces on the border. If it takes two sides to go to war, it also takes a partnership for peace. Manmohan Singh has the look of a lonely man abandoned by the partner of his dreams.

Even an Indo-Pak Nuclear War Will be Fought in Kashmir

India Warns Kashmiris to Prepare for Nuclear War

Indian officials are advising residents of strife-torn Indian Kashmir to prepare for a possible nuclear war by building bombproof basements and stockpiling food and water, adding to tensions between India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers, after deadly cross-border skirmishes in recent weeks.

“People should construct basements where the whole family can stay for a fortnight,” read the advisory, which was published January 21, 2013, in the newspaper Greater Kashmir. It comes in the midst of the worst fighting in Kashmir between India and Pakistan since a cease-fire was signed in 2003. Three Pakistani and two Indian soldiers have been killed, and one of the Indian soldiers was found without his head.

News of the mutilation infuriated Indians, with Sushma Swaraj, the leader of the opposition in the lower house of Parliament, calling for India “to get at least 10 heads from their side” if the Pakistanis did not return the soldier’s head. After criticism that he was not doing enough, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India said he was reviewing ties with Pakistan. A special visa program between the two countries has been suspended, and Pakistani players in a new Indian field hockey league have been sent home.

Officials insisted that the advisory published was unrelated to these developments. Yoginder

Kaul, the inspector general of the Civil Defense and State Disaster Response Force, said the advisory was meant to commemorate the first anniversary of the creation of his unit.

“It has nothing to do with anything else,” Mr. Kaul said in a telephone interview. “It was a routine advisory issued on our raising day to create awareness among people.”

If so, it was remarkably ill timed. The advisory suggested that people build shelters in open spaces in front of their houses if they did not have basements because “some protection was better than no protection,” according to an article about the advisory in Greater Kashmir. Food and water should be restocked regularly, and ample candles and battery-operated lights should be included, it said.

If in the open during a nuclear attack, a person should “immediately drop to ground and remain in lying position,” the advisory said.

“Stay down after the initial shock wave, wait for the winds to die down and debris to stop falling. If blast wave does not arrive within five seconds of the flash, you were far enough from the ground zero.”

“Expect some initial disorientation,” the advisory added, “as the blast wave may blow down and carry away many prominent and familiar features.”

Abdul Qaiuum of Silikote, a village close to the dividing line on the Indian side, said in a telephone interview that neither he nor his neighbors were constructing new bunkers. “No firing is taking place,” he said. Besides, he added, “we are under two to three feet of snow in the village.”

Even after both governments embarked on efforts to improve ties after decades of war and recriminations, Kashmir remains a troubled region. India, heavily Hindu, controls the bulk of the predominantly Muslim region of Kashmir, which has been at the heart of disputes between the two nations since they won independence from Britain in 1947. The land along the cease-fire Line of Control is one of the most heavily militarized areas in the world.

The latest clashes started when an elderly woman on the Indian side decided to use a secret entrance into Pakistani territory so that she could see her children living on the other side, according to a report in The Hindu, an Indian newspaper. After the Indian military discovered the tunnel, it built emplacements to prevent its use.

But those emplacements violated the terms of the cease-fire with Pakistan, and Pakistani soldiers repeatedly warned their Indian counterparts to desist, which the Indians ignored.

Firing weapons across the cease-fire line is not unusual, but the beheading, which the Pakistan government denies responsibility for, added a volatile mix to the politically charged debate. Previous mutilations of soldiers’ bodies have generally been kept secret to avoid just the sort of news media firestorm that has erupted. National elections are scheduled to be held in Pakistan by May and in India by sometime in 2014.

 

Culprits for the Feb 2007 Train Blast Yet to be Convicted

For more than one and a half years after they occurred, the blasts on the Delhi-Lahore Samjhauta Express, which claimed 68 lives, were believed to be the handiwork of Islamist terrorist groups.

The attack happened  on February 18, 2007, the day before Pakistan’s then foreign minister, Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri, was arriving to resume peace talks. So sleuths suspected the hand of Islamist groups intent on derailing the Indo-Pak initiative.

Now, the NIA has confirmed that the terror attack was actually the work of Hindutva outfits. The agency’s latest chargesheet, filed before additional sessions judge Kanchan Mahi, puts their involvement on record; it also rules out the involvement of jehadi groups. The perpetrators were seeking revenge for a spate of attacks “on Hindu temples and Hindus”.

It was in November 2008 that the railway police and an SIT of Haryana police, the agencies that first took up the case, got a whiff of the blasts being linked to Hindu terror groups. The name they turned up was Prasad Shrikant Purohit, a colonel in Military Intelligence, who was linked to the Hindutva group Abhinav Bharat. (He’s now in jail, as investigations of Hindutva terror plots widen.)

But definitive progress on that angle came since the NIA took up the case in July 2010. The chargesheet identifies the bomb-planters—Kamal Chauhan, Lokesh Sharma, Rajender Chaudhary, Amit Hakla and Sunil Joshi—as having had RSS links. In fact, Joshi, who was murdered in Dewas in December 2007, was an RSS pracharak. The chargesheet says the “blasts in Samjhauta Express, Mecca Masjid and Ajmer Sharif were  carried out by the accused in pursuance of a criminal conspiracy”. The suitcases used in the Samjhauta blasts were bought on February 14, 2007, from Kothari market in Indore and packed with explosive chemicals, fuel oil and digital timers.

A steady build-up of the case began since December 2010, when the NIA claimed evidence of Swami Aseemanand, who was formerly with the RSS, being one of the masterminds. He confessed before a magistrate, but later retracted. In February this year, the NIA arrested Kamal Chauhan, a former RSS worker, in Indore. He is believed to be an associate of Ramchandra  Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange, two absconding accused in the same case on whom the agency has announced a Rs 10 lakh reward.

Chauhan apparently took part in a training session in the Bagli forest of Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh. Joshi, Kalsangra, Sharma, Hakla and one Rajender Chaudhary attended the session. Call records confirm that they were all in touch. Arriving in Delhi by the Indore Intercity on fake names some time in November-December 2006, Chauhan and Chaudhary conducted recces of Jama Masjid and the Old Delhi railway station. Their assessment was that security at the mosque was tight, while it was lax at the railway station, so the Samjhauta Express was an easier target. The bomb-planters then took a Delhi train from Indore the day before the blasts. Arriving in the capital, they took a local train from Nizamuddin station to Old Delhi, stayed in dormitory, and reached the platform from which the targeted train was scheduled to depart at 11:05 pm. Job done, they went to Jaipur and took a bus to Indore.

Chauhan and Sharma are at the Central Jail in Ambala, awaiting trial. The rest of the accused are absconding, and Joshi, one of the key persons involved, is dead. Still, the agency hopes to be able to build a solid case. It’s awaiting comparative reports of the bombs used to see if links can be established to the blasts in Malegaon in Maharashtra and Modasa in Gujarat. That would complete the picture of the Hindutva terror story.

Several Pakistani Generals were Italian POWs

During the Second World War, all these officers were POWs in an Italian POW Camp No P.G. 63 located at Aversa which is a town in the Province of Caserta in Campania southern Italy, about 15 kilometers north of Naples.

There were a number of Axis prisoner-of-war camps in Italy during the War and the initials “P.G.” denote Prigione di Guerra (Prison of War). P.G. 63 held mostly Indian officers and soldiers.

Except for Gen Yahya, all these officers were serving in the 3^rd Indian Motor Brigade during the Battle of Ghazala 1942 and were captured when their brigade was overrun by the Afrika Korps on the very first day of the battle. Inserted into the defences at the last moment and ill equipped to take on the brunt of the attack of Rommel’s three armoured divisions, it fought tenaciously and within the space of two hours destroyed 50 German and Italian Tanks (one estimate records 80 tanks destroyed). Most of the tanks were destroyed by the 25 Pounder Guns of 2 Field Regiment, Indian Artillery firing over open sights but the 2 Pounder anti-tank guns (mounted on trucks and called ‘Portees’) of the armoured motor regiments also inflicted substantial casualties.

Some 17 officers and 670 Viceroy’s Commissioned Officers and Indian other ranks were taken prisoner and while the soldiers were released (because there was not enough water), the officers were taken to the rear and subsequently flown to Italy.

Amongst the officers were Lt Sahibzada Yaqub, signal officer of 18^th Cavalry (later Lt Gen and Foreign Minister of Pakistan) and Lt Hissam el Effendi with 11^th Cavalry (famous polo player who retired as a Brig from the Pakistan Army).

The officer serving with the 2 Field Regiment who were captured included Maj P. P. Kumaramangalam (later Chief of Staff of the Indian Army from 1967–1970), Lt A.S. Naravane (retired as Maj Gen from the Indian Army) and Lt Tikka Khan (later Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistan Army from 1972-76).

Maj Gen A.S. Naravane in his memoirs “A Soldier’s Life in War and Peace” narrates his experiences in the POW Camp P.G. 63 and states that Maj P. P. Kumaramangalam was the senior most Indian officer and was appointed as the Camp Senior Officer and Capt Yahya Khan was the Camp Adjutant.

There were a number of Indian medical officers in the P.G. 63 and one of them, Dr Satyen Basu, a doctor from Calcutta, wrote an account of his wartime experiences entitled ‘A Doctor in the Army’ which were privately published in Calcutta in 1960. During his stay in the POW Camp he befriended Lt ‘Y’ and his impressions of Lt ‘Y’ (and it takes little guesswork to decipher that he is referring to Lt Sahibzada Yaqub), were:

“Lt. Y was one of the most intelligent young lads I had ever met. Born of a royal family in one of the Indian states his early education was in the R.I.M.C. He was thus earmarked for an army career. He had proved himself an able officer in the cavalry regiment that he was serving in. But I am sure his intellectual equipment was misplaced. At 22 he was a good portrait painter, and a connoisseur of music and the dance. In two months he had brushed up his knowledge of French which he could now speak fluently, and was well up in the German language. It seemed he normally agreed with Aristotle that intellectual attainment is the greatest pleasure of life, for he kept most of his time within his room reading some book or other. And yet he had a keen sense of humour. I got friendly with him in studying together a few lectures on psychology delivered by a professor in his former camp. But it was his amiable nature that made me his friend. When I spoke my mind to Lt. Y the Cavalry officer and asked him how he felt, he replied that it was in this prison that he had spent some of the best moments of his life. Never before, he declared, was he so free from worries and allowed to follow his own pursuits – books.”

Another officer of 18^th Cavalry who was also captured was 2/Lt Abhey Singh the youngest son of Major-General Sir Onkar Singh, KCIE, a minister for the Princely State of Kotah.

2/Lt Abhey Singh was sent to P. G. 71 also in Aversa for internment.In May 1943, he was sent to P. G. 91 in Avezzano and it seems that both Maj. P. P. Kumaramangalam and Lt. Sahabzada Yaqub Khan were also transferred to this camp. In the confusion that followed the Italian surrender in September 1943, the three escaped from Avezzano. Since Lt. Yaqub Khan spoke Italian, it enabled them to solicit assistance from rural Italians who were sympathetic to the Allies. They spent four to five months attempting to move south to Allied lines, but were subsequently re-captured by German forces.

All three officers were transferred to POW camps in Germany and Maj. P. P. Kumaramangalam was interned in Stalag Luft III, 100 miles (160 km) southeast of Berlin. The camp is best known for two famous prisoner escapes that took place there by tunneling, which were depicted in the films The Wooden Horse (1950) and The Great Escape (1963)

India Finds a 1971 War POW Kept by Pakistan

Truth finds ingenious ways to manifest itself. And time, it has often been seen, is of no consequence in its pursuit. For long, 41 years to be precise, Pakistan has been denying it has any prisoners of war (PoWs) in its custody. Now, for the first time, there’s evidence to suggest that when Pakistani leaders say “No PoWs in our jails”, they are speaking only half the truth. What they don’t tell you is that many who were taken prisoner in the 1971 war could have been shifted to remote areas in friendly countries to escape detection. Following a most fortuitous series of circumstances, evidence of the presence of one such soldier—Sepoy Jaspal Singh of 15 Punjab Regiment and a PoW of the ’71 war—has come from Masirah island, 15 kilometres off the coast of Oman, which houses a military base.

The news of Jaspal Singh’s incarceration in what is called Purana Jail in Masirah was brought by Sukhdev Singh, a poor carpenter from Dugri village of Ropar district in Punjab. Sukhdev had gone to Oman in 2010 for work, as part of which he was sent to Masirah for some repair work at Purana Jail. Jaspal Singh, now around 70 years of age, approached him on seeing a turbaned Sikh. “He asked me which village I was from. When I told him, Dugri, he said it was his in-laws’ village,” Sukhdev said. “He would be serving tea and doing odd jobs for officials there. Though he looked like a Muslim with a skullcap and long beard, he spoke to me in Punjabi and told me the names of several people from my village. Over the next few days, very slowly, meeting me for not more than five minutes at a time to escape notice from his minders, Jaspal told me about the December 3 operation near Hussainiwala in which he was captured, his regiment’s name and details about his family.” He also told Sukhdev that four more soldiers had been captured along with him in the course of the operation, when a bridge near Ferozepur collapsed, leaving two companies of his battalion stranded on the other side of the river. All five PoWs were kept in Pakistan jails for five or six years and three shifted subsequently to Masirah jail. Jaspal does not know the whereabouts of the others.

When he returned in July 2012, Sukhdev immediately contacted Jaspal’s family, comprising his wife Baljit Kaur (who has been living a widow’s life all these years) and two sons. After several futile visits to the district sainik board office, the family got in touch with Lt Col S.S. Sohi (retd), who runs an NGO for ex-servicemen in Mohali. Sohi first contacted 15 Punjab regiment as well as the battalion’s commanding officer during the war, Lt Col A.S. Cheema (retd). Cheema confirmed the enemy attack on the evening of December 3, 1971, wherein they suffered the loss of three officers and many others. Jaspal had been reported missing and presumed dead since then. Sohi then informed CoAS Gen Bikram Singh, and although the latter has not responded so far, the matter was brought to the notice of the Indian embassy in Oman through some retired officers working for the repatriation of Indian PoWs. Capt Arjun Nair, the Indian defence attache in Muscat, has affirmed that the embassy has issued a note verbale to the Omani government requesting details of personnel incarcerated in Masirah island, and consular access. The ambassador has also informed the Omani foreign minister and sought assistance in locating the missing persons.

Evidence about the presence of Indian PoWs in Pakistan has been surfacing off and on, either in the form of an odd letter smuggled out of prison, debriefing of intelligence agents returning after serving sentences in Pakistan jails, and in 2005, when a human rights activist reported seeing 30 urns of ashes of 1971 PoWs lying in the Kot Lakhpat jail of Lahore. Based on these fragments, the government had compiled a list of 54 PoWs which it repeatedly presents to Pakistan but whose government steadfastly refuses to acknowledge PoW presence. As G.S. Gill, brother of Wg Cdr H.S. Gill whose plane was shot down over Badin in Dec ’71, says, “It is up to our government to do something more than accept their word.” Many of the PoWs would have died, which is why many in the government, and sadly in the defence establishment too, see it as a fruitless exercise, not worth pursuing actively any more. What hasn’t died, however, is hope in the hearts of the PoW’s next-of-kin, who haven’t given up on some definitive information on their loved ones. Sukhdev’s story has reignited this hope.

It shows up in the words of Simi Waraich, daughter of Maj S.P.S. Waraich, also from 15 Punjab, who went missing in the same Hussainiwala attack and whose name is on the government list of 54 PoWs, “This is the first-ever solid evidence we have after so many years, and its significance has still to hit government functionaries. If the government acts decisively, it can nail Pakistan’s lie once and for all, because now we have definitive proof that our PoWs had been shifted elsewhere.”

Simi and a handful of people from the Missing Defence Personnel Relatives Association (MDPRA) have met every single spy returning from Pakistani jails, and had in 2007 (seeOutlook story), on the invitation of President Pervez Musharraf, visited several Pakistani jails to search for their kin. “Pakistan’s lies have been proved time and again,” says Simi. “During the 2001 Agra summit, President Musharraf said they did not have any Indian PoWs, but events proved that Sepoys Jagseer Singh and Mohammed Arif, captured in the Kargil war, were in their jails; they were released in 2004. Why should we then believe their bland negation? It is also sad that while our government is facilitating the US army to trace remains of their ww-ii casualties, and Bangladesh to retrieve DNA samples of their ’71 war dead, it does little to follow up leads like this which can help us find our still alive PoWs.”

In fact, on the insistence of the MDPRA, the government formed a tri-service committee for missing defence personnel headed by a vice-admiral a little over a year ago. However, as Simi points out, “It has almost no teeth, hardly ever meets and has not been provided the means to investigate leads like this one. It has not made any effort to get in touch with the next-of-kin like us, who have collected evidence over the years. Even now, it is we who have on our own informed them about Sepoy Jaspal Singh. They do not even have the report compiled by us after our 2007 visit to Pakistan.”

Sukhdev, meanwhile, goes about earning his living, oblivious to the import of his testimony. Jas Uppal, a US-based human rights lawyer, who has taken up the case of Sarabjit Singh, the Indian spy on death row in Pakistan, and shot off letters to the United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch about the existence of Jaspal, said of Sukhdev, “He is an international witness, whose safety is the duty of the Indian government. He has brought evidence of a war crime and needs to be protected.” Is anyone listening?