The Hindu : Fresh hope for families of PoWs after 3 decades

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jun 02, 2003

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Other States - Jammu & Kashmir

Fresh hope for families of PoWs after 3 decades

By Our Staff Reporter

JAMMU JUNE 1. As efforts are on to normalise relations between India and Pakistan, the proposal to release prisoners of war has given a fresh hope to their families.

Jammu and Kashmir is one of the States that provides the largest number of recruits to the Army and many of its residents were captured in different wars with Pakistan mostly on the Western frontier. Three regular Indo-Pak wars have been fought in the last five decades and every time many soldiers were captured and detained on either side.

More than 30 years have passed since the 1971 war and the families of the PoWs continue to struggle to know about their whereabouts.

Endless representations to the human rights group, Red Cross and even to the Pakistan Government have failed to yield any result. Now there is fresh hope among the families that their relatives would also be released.

Father of five daughters and two sons, Subedar Assar Singh of 5 Sikh regiment was 36 when he went missing during the 1971 war. The family says the Pakistan Army captured him during a surprise assault on the western front in Chamba-Jurian sector in the Jammu region. The areas came under Pakistan occupation and remained so even after the war as a result of the 1971 Shimla agreement in which a large tract of Chamb was handed over to Pakistan for rationalisation of the Line of Control.

The youngest daughter of Subedar Assar Singh, Ravinder Kour, was born four months after he was captured by the Pakistan army. The daughter who has not seen her father says, "our hopes have been rekindled now. I hope the authorities on the other side will listen to the plea of a daughter and release my father on humanitarian grounds," she says.

It has been a difficult journey for Nirmal Kour, wife of the Assar Singh, as she has not only educated the five daughters and two sons but also built a small shelter.

The family of Lt . P.R. Sharma, a resident of border district of Rajouri, has sent a number of representations to the authorities but in vain. So is the case of Grenadier Madan Lal and Havildar Krishna Lal who went missing in the 1971 war.

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