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Journalism of Courage
RAJKOT, Dec 18: The Missing Defence Personnel Relatives’ Association is going to file a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Supreme Court for repatriation of the 54 missing officers of the Indian army who are still claimed to be in Pakistani jails. This was disclosed by association secretary, M K Paul, here on Wednesday.
General Jagjit Singh Arora (Retd), the commanding officer of Eastern Command during the 1971 Indo-Pak war, will also be one of the petitioners in the case. He will file an affidavit soon, Paul said. Another person filing an affidavit for the cause is Mohanlal Bhaskar, who had been lodged in Lahore prison on the charge of spying and later repatriated in 1974.
Paul said that according to the Defence Ministry, 2,238 army personnel were taken prisoners of war by Pakistan on the Kashmir front. Only 616 soldiers of low rank were returned to the country. India, on the other hand, returned all 93,000 prisoners it had captured. Arora said that going by the Geneva convention, India returnedPakistani soldiers to their country.
Paul said that Pakistan did’t follow the rules of Geneva convention and had breached human rights laws too. He added that till now they had written with top authorities of India, but the reply had always been that something would be done, though nothing was done.
He said that out of the 1,600 soldiers believed to be in Pakistani jails, the government had declared the name of 54 officers in Parliament. But about the others the government has made no statement. Bhaskar is the prime witness in the case. Bhaskar said that he was in the Lahore jail along with Major Ayaz Ahmed Sikri and Gen Asif Shaifi of the Pakistan army, who were arrested for an alleged coup against Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
Bhaskar said that they told him that around 50 to 60 officers who are prisoners of war were still in the Attack Fort prison. On repatriation, Bhaskar disclosed this to Indian officials has written the same in his book also. Paul said their association took up the cause of the 54 namesdeclared to be still alive in the Pakistani jail after reading this from Bhaskar’s book.
Other evidence presented also suggests that these Indian officers are in Pakistani jails. Paul said that Bhutto had written from jail to his daughter in England that he was unable to sleep at night as the “Hindu officers” were crying at night. The letter is printed in a book, `Bhutto: Execution and Trial’, by Victoria Schoyfield.
Paul said the irony was that although 54 officers were declared alive in the Pakistani jail by the government, the military has considered them dead and is giving pensions to the families. He said that they would petition the Supreme Court to order payment of full salary to the families of the officers. Paul said that they will also register a case with the International Human Rights Commission.
