Kashmir returns

 

 

This could well be the beginning of a saga. Differences notwithstanding, the people of India and Pakistan are eager to mingle together. Nothing exemplified this better when Kashmir Singh, an Indian prisoner held in Pakistan on espionage charges, was released after 35 years in captivity due to the endeavors of the Ansar Burney Trust International. When Kashmir Singh walked across Wagah border this week to a rousing reception led by his fellow villagers from the Nangal Choran village in Hoshiarpur district, a free man, his weeping wife was there to receive him. Said Kashmir Singh: “This is my second birth. I would go to Pakistan on a passport and put a chaddar on the tomb of Baba Farid.”

The Burney Trust is familiar with such cases. “I received a phone call from a distressed mother whose son is languishing in a Cyprus jail. She said she can understand the feelings of the family of Kashmir Singh who has been released after 35-years,” Syed Sarim Burney, vice chairman, Ansar Burney Trust International told TSI.

Founded in 1980, the Ansar Burney Trust International has been instrumental in locating prisoners and highlighting their plight, especially if they were wrongly confined or had completed their term but were not being released for one or the other reason. “We are not a political organisation and we don’t know whether the charges against Kashmir Singh were true. He was awarded death penalty by a military court on espionage charges but somehow the court orders did not materialise,” Burney said. “In such cases, the death sentence is converted into life imprisonment that is 14-years and he had completed it long ago. The credit of Kashmir Singh’s release goes to President Musharraf and Pakistan Army because a military court had sentenced him to death penalty,” he added.

Burney lamented that the Indian High Commission in Pakistan was not enthusiastic enough about prisoners and same applied to the Pakistan High Commission in India. “I sent a letter to the Indian High Commission regarding an Indian prisoner but it had no information about him. You see, it’s the job of the High Commission to look after its prisoners,” he said.

“The Indian prisoner had completed his term and had the Indian High Commission issued him travel documents, he would have been in his home in a week,” Burney said. According to him, Kashmir Singh came to Pakistan as a trader and was held on espionage charges. “Times have changed. Now one can know every thing through the satellite,” Burney said. He said many Indian and Pakistani prisoners were languishing in jail. "They are in immediate need of help, but the two governments would have to adopt a more flexible approach towards the problem.