Kashmir Liberated, Others Languish

One would expect the liberation of Kashmir to dominate world news. But on March 3, the freedom of Kashmir that eclipsed all else on the Pakistani news channels was the release of Kashmir Singh, the Indian death-row prisoner convicted of espionage after being arrested in 1973 (the year we got a constitution).

The event overshadowed another significant release that day, of Supreme Court Bar Association President Aitzaz Ahsan in Lahore and pushed into the background yet another confrontation between police and lawyers in Islamabad seeking the release of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and other detained judges and lawyers.

Kashmir Singh spent 35 years in various Pakistani prisons before Ansar Burney, the caretaker minister of human rights found him and obtained a presidential pardon. President Musharraf ordered Kashmir’s unilateral and unconditional release. This was a good deed that will be remembered. The media circus surrounding Kashmir’s release will also be remembered -- for all the wrong reasons, including the inane blow by blow commentary (“there you see him eating”) and questions (“And how did you spend your time?”).

Tellingly, Mr Burney refused to comment on the issue of the detained judges, whom he insists are not under house arrest. These judges who refused to take oath under Musharraf's Provisional Constitutional Order of November 3, 2007, ‘ceased to be judges’ according to caretaker law minister Afzal Haider who has been unable to find a legal definition for their status.

Mr Burney, however, acknowledged that Kashmir Singh’s freedom is part of the larger, ongoing issues of prison conditions and arrests by India and Pakistan of each other’s citizens, including young boys, for transgressions like over-staying a visa or straying across the border. Rightly or wrongly, many are accused of espionage or worse and end up spending years in prison. A diplomat from the Indian High Commission told a TV reporter that Pakistan currently has 575 prisoners of Indian origin, besides the 25 Indian fishermen arrested recently, while India has 200 Pakistani prisoners, besides 18 fishermen. Independent estimates believe the actual numbers to be higher.

Then there is the case of the ‘forgotten 54’ Indian prisoners-of-war whose existence Pakistan has repeatedly denied. The issue was revived in September 2004 after a group of Pakistanis and Indians ran into the daughter of one of these POWs at a Delhi hotel. When a young Indian, Siddharth Dave, introduced himself to her as a Pakistani, she told him her father Major Sharanjitpal Singh Waraich of 15 Punjab (Patiala Regiment) was in Attock Fort along with the 30 others she hoped were still alive.

Her name was Simmi Waraich, a psychiatrist. She had written about this issue for the interactive online interactive magazine Chowk with evidence that the missing men were in Pakistani custody, including a photograph in Time magazine and a letter sent from Karachi (‘The Forgotten 54 - When will the War Finish for Them?’ B. Waraich, September 3, 2004, www.chowk.com). Subsequently, some Pakistani newspapers published her letters of appeal to the President.

In January 2007, at a meeting with Indian External Affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee, Pervez Musharraf invited the missing Indians’ next of kin to visit the Pakistani prisons for themselves. Simmi Waraich was among the delegation that arrived in Pakistan in June 2007 with high hopes. After combing through several prisons and their records, facilitated by the authorities in every way, they had to leave without finding trace of their loved ones but still convinced that they are here. This is because, as Simmi wrote in a series of articles at Chowk in June 2007, “apart from the evidence, Pakistan (and perhaps other countries too)” have systems that leave much room for error.

These errors include incorrect records, names mis-transcribed so that “Baldev in the admission or Entry Register became Billoo in the Transfer register”. Other names “were outright absurd and likely to have been made up”.

Kashmir Singh had taken on another identity altogether, Mohammad Ibrahim, the name he initially provided Ansar Burney. Then there is “Sarabjit Singh”, arrested in 1990 for bomb blasts at Lahore, Kasur and Faislabad. His relatives insist that this is a case of mistaken identity, as he is in reality Manjit Singh, a farmer who strayed across the border in an intoxicated state. Whatever his crime, he has already served over 17 years in prison.

Simmi pointed out that additionally, prisoners may languish for a time before reaching a civilian prison. For example, Jagseer Singh and Mohammad Arif, two of the soldiers captured after the Kargil conflict in September, 1999, were kept in a place they cannot identify as they were in solitary confinement and blindfolded most of the time, before being brought to Rawalpindi jail for consular access. They were charged with border crossing. The Indian army had classified them as deserters while Pakistan had not disclosed their presence.

They were ‘found’ in August 2004 after managing to send a letter home. By then, Arif’s family, presuming him dead, had got his wife Guriya married to another cousin, with whose child she was pregnant. This ignited a poignant drama which ended with Guriya being ‘returned’ to Arif after having her other marriage annulled.

Fortunately for Kashmir Singh, his wife Parameet, with whom he had contracted a ‘love marriage’, had waited for him as she knew in her heart, as she told journalists later, that he was alive. They are reunited now in their old age, in a real-life drama that mirrors the popular Bollywood film ‘Veer Zara’.

Kashmir Singh was liberated on the same day as the high profile lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan, in captivity since November 3, for whose release American senators petitioned the President. Like Kashmir Singh, Aitzaz Ahsan too symbolizes a larger issue. He has repeatedly expressed outrage at not his own incarceration but at the forced detention of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Choudhry and his family, including his wife and school-going children, particularly the youngest, who is a special needs child.

The day the paperwork was finally completed allowing Kashmir Singh to cross Wagah border into India and be reunited with his family, Aitzaz Ahsan also crossed the Punjab-Sindh provincial border, using his first day of freedom to visit the grave of his slain leader Benazir Bhutto. The celebrations and joy on either side as Kashmir Singh crossed the Wagah border contrasted poignantly with the tears at Ghari Khuda Baksh. Several television channels juxtaposed both events on their screens, alternating running commentaries on both.

Hours later, suicide bombers targeted the Naval War College on the main Mall Road in Lahore, eclipsing for the moment, both Kashmir Singh and Aitzaz Ahsan, and the larger issues they symbolize.