The Hindu : No `healing touch' for this Pak. boy?

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 21, 2003

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No `healing touch' for this Pak. boy?

By Mohammed Iqbal

JAIPUR JULY 20. Even as two-and-a-half-year-old Noor Fatima from Pakistan basks in nationwide attention, a poor teenage boy from her country, who strayed into India, has been languishing in a police lock-up in the border district of Sriganganagar in Rajasthan for the past three weeks.

Thirteen-year-old Muneer, who belongs to Bhatu village in the Punjab province of Pakistan, apparently lost his way while grazing cattle and crossed over to the Indian side of the border on June 26. He was caught by the Border Security Force and handed over to police.

The repeated interrogation of the illiterate teenager by the BSF, police and intelligence agencies has yielded no indication of his suspicious intentions or involvement in any clandestine mission.

"The boy seems to be innocent and no criminal case is made out against him. We are trying for his deportation and have explained the situation in this regard to the State Government through police headquarters," an official of the Sriganganagar district police told The Hindu today.

Muneer, who is too young to understand the intricacies of diplomatic relations between the two countries, constantly remembers his parents (his father, Mohammed Bilal, is a cattle grazer), two brothers and four sisters back home. He cries and pleads with the policemen to let him go to his village.

Contrary to the outpouring of offers of assistance to Noor, the boy is yet to receive any healing touch in the difficult times of his personal crisis when he has been separated from his family. His parents may not even be aware that their son is in police custody in India.

The Rajasthan unit of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) intends to take up Muneer's case with the authorities and has dashed off a letter to the Union Home Ministry. "As no case has been registered under the Foreigners Act or Passport Act, Muneer can be sent to Lahore by the renewed Sada-e-Sarhad bus without much hassle," says Kavita Srivastava, general secretary of the State PUCL.

However, Muneer's deportation will depend on a number of factors including the progress of bilateral relations between India and Pakistan following the restoration of the Delhi-Lahore bus service and the appointment of High Commissioners. His predicament perhaps reinforces the need for evolving a mechanism whereby the common people on both sides of the border can help each other out.

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