The Hindu : National : Doing his bit for Indians in Pakistan jails

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Doing his bit for Indians in Pakistan jails

Luv Puri

Kunjawani (J&K): Even as the nation celebrates the release of Kashmir Singh from a Lahore jail after 35 years, the man who confirmed his whereabouts last year believes that the battle to get other Indians released from Pakistan prisons has just started.

Mr. Singh, who received a Presidential pardon, had been arrested in Rawalpindi in 1973 and sentenced to death by a military court on charges of espionage.

List of prisoners

Fortyfour-year-old Swaran Lal, who spent nearly 14 years in the jail where Mr. Singh was lodged, has compiled a list of Indian prisoners with particulars.

“I knew that the real service I could do to fellow prisoners after my release was to reveal their whereabouts to the rest of the country. Therefore, during the last month of my sentence I carried out an extensive research with the help of prison mates and wrote out the names of all persons lodged in the jail.”

According to Mr. Lal, there are several Indians whose plight is not very different from Mr. Singh’s and may be worse health wise.

Shahabuddin (73) of the Mendhar area of Jammu and Kashmir, arrested in 1991, was given a 25-year sentence. “The old man has lost all hopes of ever being released,” Mr. Lal said.

Charan Singh, 61, resident of Amritsar, was arrested in 1986 and was charged under the Pakistan Army Act. His wife has since died. Charan Singh asked Lal to tell his relatives on the Indian side to consider him dead as he had lost all hopes of release.

Fortyfour-year-old Kripal Singh is facing a death sentence. He was arrested on July 7, 1993 from the Narowal area of Pakistan, which adjoins Gurdaspur district in Punjab.

There are many others who have lost their mental balance.

One of them is Hakim Singh from Haryana, who was sentenced for 12 years initially. Now he is being looked after by other Indian inmates.

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