The killer migration wave

BACK home, the living are counting the dead. Families of victims are drawing lists of the dead and organising campaigns to get their death certificates. Seeing the government8217;s little interest in the case, they formed the Malta Boat Tragedy Probe Mission MBTPM about 7-8 months after the accident.

It was due to the untiring efforts of this Hoshiarpur-based organisation that the government ordered a CBI probe into the tragedy in 1997. The Mission8217;s chairmanship and social activist Balwant Singh Khera says: 8216;8216;The probe is incomplete but the CBI has assured us that they8217;ll complete it soon. The conspirators in this tragedy are part of an international mafia indulging in illegal human trafficking. Our government knows this but does nothing.8217;8217;

Khera adds that in January 2005, Punjab Governor Gen retd S.F. Rodrigues wrote to the Punjab Police, strongly criticising its slow progress in preparing a list of those who died in the tragedy. The CBI has got the names of 80 victims whereas the Probe Mission has managed to trace down 135 names.

In 2001, the Italian newspaper La Repubblica launched a campaign to retrieve the wreckage and remains of the bodies. Says Khera: 8216;8216;I fail to understand what stops our government to make arrangements to bring back the remains of our people.8217;8217;

IN Punjab, the families of victims are not prepared to wait endlessly for a government probe. About 15 to 20 cases have been filed by these families and are in the lower courts, the High Court and the Supreme Court. Nearly 40 travel agents based in India, Greece and Italy, were named as accused in about 30 FIRs. Of these, 30 travel agents from India were booked but were later let off on bail.

Says Gurmel Singh of Kharar, father of one of the boys who drowned: 8216;8216;I have filed a case against the unscrupulous travel agent who is responsible for my son8217;s death.8217;8217;

For Jaspal Kaur, whose husband was killed, time has not eased her struggle. 8216;8216;Since I haven8217;t got my husband8217;s death certificate, all my work is stalled, the property cannot be transferred. The government is a mute spectator to our tragedy.8217;8217;

In addition, the Malta Boat Tragedy Probe Mission is fighting two cases: one for compensation and the other for handing over the CBI probe to the Ministry of External Affairs.

The lawyer representing MBTPM, Jatinderjit Kaur, says: 8216;8216;No government moved the case forward and we were forced to file cases on our own centering around three demands: issue of death certificates, making the complete list of victims and punishing the guilty.8217;8217; She adds, 8216;8216;As per the law, a person is declared dead if untraced for seven years. But in this case, more than eight years have passed and we are still fighting to get death certificates.8217;8217;

Apart from the cases filed in India, the government of Italy has filed 15 cases and Greece 11 against the ship owner, the captains of the Yiohan and the ferry. Till date there has been only verdict in which a travel agent was convicted.