One thing India and Pak officials agree on: fleece the poor passenger

Obviously, Pak officials weren’t quite happy and although we told them that we had permission from the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi for “coverage of Samjhauta Express,” they began beating up Quraishi. They said it was their writ which ran here. As for the permission from the Pak High Commission, they said they couldn’t care less.

After slapping him around, at least seven men — all refusing to show their ID cards — took Quraishi to a small, windowless room for interrogation. Here, he was frisked, his camera bag searched. “You are a Muslim. Why are you working with a Hindu? They demolished our Babri Masjid,” they told him.

They removed the film roll from the camera — fortunately, Quraishi had changed the roll — and innocuous photos of Lahore’s landmarks. Somehow, they never asked about the negatives. They found another roll in his pocket and asked him to swear on the Quran and say what it contained.

Quraishi went through the motions but evaded a direct reply. Because that roll had the pictures that told the story.

While Quraishi was “in custody,” I tried to get some help. Not one official — Customs, Immigration, Railways or even from the Rangers — came forward. “It is a security matter. Those men will handle it,” was the refrain.

It all started at 11 am, 30 minutes before the Samjhauta Express was to depart from Wagah. Seated next to a window in an overcrowded coach, I noticed a woman on the railway platform. (She later identified herself as Kulsoom). She was pleading, begging a man in civilian clothes, her fist clenched tight around the notes. I alerted Quraishi just as the man yielded, accepted the money. The picture was taken.

Kulsoom later told me that the plainclothesman had approached her at Lahore and promised to get her through immigration and customs. “Not a single bag will be opened,” he promised. His price: Rs 1,500.

At Wagah, he didn’t deliver. The X-ray machines didn’t work and every piece of the woman’s baggage was opened. Her brother, however, was cleared. Still, they wanted her to shell out, now Rs 2,000.

The desperate woman paid up but still her baggage wasn’t released. The plainclothesman took her outside, where one can go only after all necessary clearances, and demanded Rs 1,500 more. “I could only manage Rs 1,100 and that is what the argument was all about. But finally he took that and got my baggage released,” Kulsoom said.

The plainclothesman was later seen freely mingling with the policemen in their black and khaki uniform and also sharing his booty with a Pak Ranger. The nexus was clear.

Kulsoom wasn’t the only one. Khadim Hussain paid Rs 2,000. A Sikh family, not wanting to be named, paid Rs 11,000 as “duty” though they got a receipt for only Rs 5,000.

The method is straightforward: hold the passenger’s baggage or his passport. Habib Bhai of Junagadh said the Customs people kept his passport and returned it only after he paid Rs 1,500. “I had paid Rs 500 at Attari on my way to Pakistan,” he said. Hamida from Aligarh paid Rs 3,000 to a plainclothesman who boarded the train at Lahore, again promising to get her baggage cleared.

Even more disturbing than the brazen corruption is the nexus among all the agencies. No one spares a thought for what the passengers are going through. As one of them says: “If this train stops, all these officers will become paupers.”