The Hindu : Indian prisoners back home from Pakistan

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 19, 2003

Front Page

Front Page

Indian prisoners back home from Pakistan

By Sarabjit Pandher

Surinder Singh, who was released from a Pakistani jail, hugs his daughter, Harpreet Kaur, after entering India at the Wagah border on Sunday.

CHANDIGARH May 18. As part of the ongoing confidence-building measures, both Pakistan and India launched yet another round of goodwill gestures at the border. Twenty Indian nationals, including six Sikh youths, walked back to freedom today after languishing in Pakistani jails for the past two years.

Emotional scenes were witnessed as relatives received their loved ones at the Attari-Wagah joint check-post in Amritsar district. These include 14 crew members of the Indian cargo vessel `Raj Lakshmi' which sank off the coast of Karachi. The release, which was announced earlier this month by the Pakistani Prime Minister, Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, had been delayed by a day, while it was an agonising period of waiting for the families of the captives.

Reports in the regional media said a team of Coast Guard officers was also present to receive the 14 crew members who were taken into custody by the Pakistan Navy off the Gujarat coast.

According to a journalist, Deepak Sharma, who has been a witness to 33 such repatriations, today's event was quite different. ``Unlike the previous occasions when detenus brought home remains or souvenirs of other prisoners who died in Pakistan jails, those released today were carrying boxes of sweets wrapped in green paper. They also carried the best wishes for their country men from the authorities across the border.''

Mr. Sharma said that mediapersons were not allowed to interact with the released persons as soon as they crossed the border. For more than an hour they were ``tutored'' by the Indian intelligence agencies. Even then not all were allowed to meet the media, which had been barricaded at quite a distance.

The scribes were taken aback when the released persons began to praise the Pakistani authorities. Most of them even claimed to have received ``exceptionally good'' treatment.

However, it was 30-year old Surinder Singh, who could not control his emotions when he saw his mother, Gurmeet Kaur. He ``exposed'' the exercise and narrated the extremely inhuman conditions in which about 100 Indians were still languishing in Kot Lakhpat jail near Lahore.

He said at least 40 per cent of the prisoners, owing to regular sessions of torture and abuse, had lost their mental balance, while some had even forgotten their addresses back home. Others continued to suffer from disease, as they were not provided any medical care.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page

Stories in this Section

PM to reshuffle Cabinet, take in new faces

Indian prisoners back home from Pakistan

A faux pas by Jamali?

India, China close to deal on Sikkim?

Top surgeon kidnapped in Patna

'Talks progressing'

Train fire: 3 suspended

Arms bag on Rajpath

Vegetable salt

Inflation falls