'India is least bothered about 1971 war prisoners'

Successive Indian governments never bothered about Indian prisoners of war, and never responded about their status in Pakistani jails, Nilanjana Ghosh, daughter of Major A K Ghosh, who is suspected to be in a Pakistani jail since the 1971 Indo-Pak War, said in Ahmedabad on Friday.

"I have been running from pillar to post to know the status of my father Major A K Ghosh, who was missing in action in the 1971 Indo-Pak war. However, I never got any response from any Indian government," she told media persons.

She said her family had received a telegram on December 3, 1971, that her father Major A K Ghosh was presumed dead after having gone missing in action in the battle of Fazilka.

"However, it was an article in the Time magazine with a photograph of Major A K Ghosh which revealed he is among the 54 Indian PoWs in Pakistani jails," she said.

"Indian government departments including the home department and the external affairs department always passed the buck saying this issue does not come under their jurisdiction," she said.

"I had very high hopes from the new government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. So I wrote to him and his Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj last year, immediately after the formation of the BJP government, but their response was exactly like earlier governments," she said.

Nilanjana said that she was barely eight months old when her father (then aged 25) of the 15th Rajputana Regiment went to war, but never returned.

The Ghosh family's struggle began after they read an article in Time magazine based on which her grandfather and uncle approached authorities in both India as well as Pakistan, but got no response, she said.

In September 1983, a delegation including relatives of Major Ghosh went to Paksistan to know the status of Indian PoWs, but they failed to get any clue about his fate, she said.

Since 2000 onwards, she wrote to each and every Indian government, but there was no response at all.

She also said that she received a letter from former Pakistani president General Pervez Musharraf in which he denied that there was anybody named Major Ghosh in Pakistani custody.

"When I wrote to former President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf saying he is a soldier and he must feel the agony of a jailed soldier's family, he replied that he too is a soldier and he knows the agony of a soldier's family, but mentioned that there was no person called Major Ghosh in any Pakistani jail," she said.

Advocate K M Paul, who had taken up issue of the 54 Indian PoWs including Ghosh, said that the high court and the Supreme Court in their orders on December 23, 2011, and September 23, 2014, respectively, directed the Indian government to pay compensation of families of Indian PoWs, but even that was paid only partially.

According to Paul, the Indian government has compensated merely around 35 families so far.