After 40 yrs in Ranchi, Chinese PoWs walk free

Room No 1 of the Central Institute of Psychiatry’s Kreplin ward is today empty. Its occupants, Yung Chialung (61) and M.A.Siblong (65),...

Room No 1 of the Central Institute of Psychiatry’s Kreplin ward is today empty. Its occupants, Yung Chialung (61) and M.A.Siblong (65), two Chinese Prisoners of War who have been languishing there for over 40 years — as reported by The Indian Express on August 1, 2000 — have at last been released.

They were taken to New Delhi by a team from Union Home Ministry on July 6 and reportedly handed over to the Chinese embassy. ‘‘They were freed,’’ confirmed Ranchi Deputy Commissioner Pradeep Kumar about the two who have been staying behind the high walls of this asylum since 1964. ‘‘It turned out to be a long haul because the records showing their identity and other details had to be pieced together and ascertained,’’ said a senior IAS officer who didn’t wish to be quoted.

When The Indian Express had first reported their plight, North Block had instituted an inquiry and also asked the Bihar government for information. The home ministry had been told by both the defence ministry and army headquarters that the two men didn’t figure in their records. The ministry of external affairs and the foreigners’ division in the home ministry too had said they were clueless.

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In official records Siblong was identified as an ‘‘ex PLA soldier’’ at the time of his arrest somewhere in NEFA; Chialung, who reportedly identified himself as a ‘‘civilian’’, was picked up from around the same area after the 1962 war.

Before being brought here, the two were lodged at Delhi’s Tihar Jail and Punjab’s Patiala Jail. Doctors who treated them at the asylum said both had recovered from mild attacks of schizophrenia. But no one ever enquired about them, nor contacted them.

When this reporter met them for the first time inside the asylum on July 30, 2000, both had smiled without communicating anything — they didn’t know either English or Hindi.

Though they were looked after, they had to fight solitude and rejection and had only each other for company. ‘‘They looked very happy when they were being taken out of the ward,’’ said one of the nurses who was attending on them.

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