Veeresh Malik January 6, 2005

Tags: POW , 1971

href="/tag/Pakistan">Pakistan, mainly Urdu and Sindhi print media, in Pakistan. Also with the Baluchi and Kashmiri newspapers. Luckily for me, the total cost of these advertisements would be a number I could afford as an individual. In addition, I plan to offer a reward of 25000 dollars for this information, no questions asked, most of which has been under-written by friends abroad.

The purpose of this advertisement has to do with seeking out information about Indian Armed Forces personnel "missing" or captured in and around Pakistan, especially in 1971. While trying to collect data on this, I came across the startling fact that many fishermen and a few Merchant Navy personnel had also gone adrift over the past few decades. Another legally connected source in Pakistan provided me with the information that non-Muslim Indians and many non-Muslims were still considered "enemy aliens" in Pakistan, and due process of law was simply not applicable to them unless they converted to Islam.

At which point, obviously, they would have to change their names.

So, if I was looking at finding them in jails or in documents, I could forget it. Better bet would be to try to strike the humanity that lies within all of us for information that would simply help others achieve probable closure in most cases.

But the focus being simple - I just needed one postal address to act as a drop-box, where other Pakistanis who do not have access to the Internet could send simple letters. By post in envelopes, post-cards or inland letters. Or any old how. I just wanted that this address should belong to a neutral, non-affiliated person. Somebody without baggage or background on this subject.

It is a sign of the times that I have not got a single volunteer address from many I thought would provide me one, from this website. Not even from the famously free English language Pakistani media. In fact, some of the best of the best of the best, icons of a new Pakistan, have replied saying "not interested".

On the other hand, hard-core Pakistanis with views absolutely tangential with most other people on this planet, from the vernacular media in Pakistan, have not only offered to provide their address, but are also offering to carry the advertisements free of charge. And now, out of the blue, I have got a response from a Pakistani person who has assured me maximum help.

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The 10th Baluch Regiment was composed, pre-1947, of an almost equal number of Muslims, Pathans and Dogras. Officers were drawn from all over, including a few Britishers. The 7th Battalion of this regiment, called the 7/10 Baluch, was asked to move from Oudh to Karachi some time in June 1947 to take charge of all ceremonial duties pertaining to the birth of the new country of Pakistan. A young and newly married Captain, Regimental boxing champion as well as a qualified Doctor who chose to join the Infantry, let us call him "M", gallantry award winner and freshly returned from recovering in Colombo after being injured in Burma, returned from wedding leave in Jhung and was selected to present the first Guard of Honour to Mr. Jinnah in what was, till then, to be a common army between two friendly nations.

Hours before the ceremony, this young Captain M got the order asking him to stand down in favour of a fellow Punjabi officer, Captain SA. Being comrades in battle, M’s wife sat with SA’s family during the Guard of Honour at Karachi Airport, while a grim-faced Mountbatten looked on at Jinnah Sahib bringing down the Union Jack. Subsequently, at the first ever flag unfurling of the new Country of Pakistan at the Governor’s residence in Karachi, M supervised the Regimental Sergeant Major, the seniormost Subedar Major. This flag now honours the Battle Mess of the 7/10 Baluch.

The Union Jack in question was quietly taken away.

Till today it is not clear on who gave the order to replace M with SA. It has always been surmised that it was the British Commanding Officer who took this decision. It seems, this may be a true legend, since M and SA had a few drinks later that evening in Karachi with the rest of the young officers, which SA paid for.

The very next day itself M was instructed to move to report to the Indian Army in Delhi. He managed, with the help of SA and his Regiment, to put his new wife on a crowded flight to Bombay in a day and age when the richest were fleeing Karachi by boat. All of the baggage that was supposed to go with her was offloaded, or was pilfered in Bombay, and never recovered.

With SA’s help, M then motivated another ride in an aircraft to fly him towards his hometown. There SA helped him further organise three trucks as well as soldiers from his regiment to escort M’s extended family out of the refugee camps in, by now, burning Jhung. SA was personally responsible for bringing out and saving the life of a few of the young men in M’s family who had not been permitted safe passage to the refugee camps, and had been stranded behind in their home.

The locals wanted them to convert or be killed. Logic being that sending them to India as young male Hindus was simply not sensible when other options were available.

A few of the young people, as well as some of the elders who refused to move, never appeared again, it was rumoured that either they had been killed or they had been forcibly converted to Islam. Legends about their bravery in death grew with every family function.

Despite the best efforts of the escort, the three hundred and odd people who crowded the trucks were subjected to looting, ambush, kidnap, disappearance, and death, en route. When M finally reached India, with nothing on him other than his uniform and his personal revolver, he did not know where his wife was and which Regiment he was supposed to report to.

After much confusion and travel to points as widely dispersed as Bombay, Calcuta, Roorkee, Ramgarh and Delhi, the Indian Army then positioned M to coordinate the exchange of refugee convoys with the Pakistani Army. Here, while living with death in vast numbers on a daily basis, amongst other things, he was responsible for locating and assisting elements of SA’s family to move across the border. One of SA’s family members presented M with a gramophone.

A few months later M was sent to Kashmir to lead Indian troops against the same Pakistani troops he had commanded and worked with a few months ago.

Years later, an envelope containing cheque stubs as well as passbooks of an account with the Imperial Bank in Lahore were sent to M. There is no track on the missing Union Jack. The gramophone still works and the revolver lies deposited in an armoury.

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1971, East Pakistan, mid-December. There is absolute confusion at the Eastern Command Headquarters of the Pakistani Army. United Nations vehicles manned largely by Indian Army regulars in blue berets are as visible on the streets of Dacca as are Pakistan Army vehicles. The question is not of surrender but how to surrender. The Indian Army demands an unconditional surrender while the Pakistanis want an honourable exit from what is no longer their country. There is absolute and uncontrolled mingling of Indian and Pakistani troops while the ceasefire is on. Outside, Dacca is, meanwhile, celebrating.

A young Pakistani officer hears a fairly senior Indian officer speaking to somebody else in a Punjabi dialect which is the same as his. He introduces himself, and notes are exchanged on backgrounds. The relationships to M and SA are the next revelations. The Indian officer was one of the young men rescued from a burning home in Jhung by SA. The Pakistani officer was one of the youngsters who had been helped to move from Indian Punjab to Pakistan.

That evening, a few helicopters from the Army Aviation Unit of the Pakistan Army make a succesful and unchallenged zig-zag flight, with refueling, to the dense forests on the Burmese border before flying to Akyab. The 7/10 Baluch barracks in Akyab which they used while awaiting repatriation to Pakistan were still in position.

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M & SA are gone. The Indian Army officer in Dacca is also gone. The young Pakistani officer who escaped is still very much around.

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