Tortured, Jailed, Freed!

As many people are being arrested and jailed across India under the Official Secrets Act, THE WEEK unearths official and court records revealing the misuse of the law

By Syed Nazakat

Half past noon on September 14, 2009, a team of Manipur Police Commandos (MPC) burst into Imphal's Tulihal Airport and arrested Jiten Yumnam. Two men grabbed him tightly as a group of heavily-armed commandos covered them in a circle. They held his head down and forced him into a police vehicle. His crime? Yumnam, 32, an environmental and human rights campaigner, had been demanding an inquiry into the killing of two people by MPC on July 23, 2009. What put him in trouble were his emails to international human rights monitors such as Amnesty International. The police charged him with leaking out state secrets to enemy. In custody, he was certain that the authorities were determined to silence him. “I still fail to understand how was I booked under the Official Secrets Act. I had just written an open letter to human rights organisations about a fake encounter in my state,” said Yumnam. “When I came to know that I'm charged with spying, I was devastated.” After a year of court arguments and mass protests, and when the government realised that the case would lead to serious embarrassment, he was released.

Yumnam is one of the many victims of the Official Secrets Act, India's anti-espionage law inherited from British raj. The law makes it a criminal offence to disclose anything the government calls, no matter how insignificant,an official secret. Under the law, any person who reveals such secrets is subject to arrest and, if convicted, to a maximum sentence of fourteen years in prison. 

“I was virtually picked up from the street and declared a traitor,” said Yumnam. A day after he was arrested, he said, he was taken to the police headquarters and was thrown blindfolded into an underground cell. “I was given electric shocks in my genitals and a police officer put a pistol on my head and threatened to kill me,” he said.

Jiten's story leads to a raft of cases in which scores of people were arrested in various parts of India under the OSA without charges and without court trails for years. The current crop of accused comes in the form of serving or retired armed forces personnel, technicians, businessman, engineers, journalists, students, farmers, drivers and vegetable vendors. As per the Union home ministry records, 395 people have been booked and lodged in various prisons under the OSA in the past 10 years. Home ministry spokesperson Onkar Kedia, however, said the OSA cases are being investigated by the state governments and “the total number of cases registered and the number of convictions secured are not centrally maintained.” The National Crime Records Bureau also has no pan-Indian figures on the people arrested under the Act and the convictions. “We have no records on the OSA cases,” said Alok Kumar Verma, chief statistical officer of NCRB.

THE WEEK has unearthed official and court records that shed  light on the misuse of the OSA, and heard the stories of those who were wrongly jailed for years. Havaldar Sabhajit Yadav, one of them, was arrested with Girija Shanker Pandey, a former Navy sailor, in Delhi on May 14, 2000. Yadav was branded an Inter-Services Intelligence operative and accused of passing 'sensitive information' to a Pakistani agent in Kathmandu.

The chargesheet, however, had nothing about the documents he was alleged to have carried and nothing was produced before the court. He was not allowed to speak in court, and if he did the police tortured him. After spending eight years in Tihar jail, Yadav, along with Pandey, was acquitted by Delhi's Tis Hazari court on January 28, 2009. The court slammed the police for failing to prove the charges against him and said even the date and time of the arrest were given wrong. “If the accused persons were not arrested on the date and time as claimed by the prosecution, the alleged recovery from them becomes doubtful,” said the court. Nobody, however, was punished for wrongly jailing them for eight years. In the case of  Brig. Ujjal Dasgupta, director (computers), Research and Analysis Wing, who was arrested on July 19, 2006 for allegedly passing on sensitive information to a US embassy employee working undercover for the CIA, the police are yet to frame the charges. After four years in jail, he was released on bail last month.

More recently advocate Ramananda Taorem, 50, a lawyer, was arrested by the Imphal Police under the OSA on September 14, 2009. A year later the government released him and withdrew the cases. A cardiac patient and now suffering from monoparesis (partial loss of movement of a single body part), Taorem had a minor stroke in jail and a major one after the release. He is yet to regain his ability to speak.

  

An examination of stacks of the OSA files show the border states like J&K, Punjab and Rajasthan are one of the prime targets of the OSA cases. One of the recent one is of 62-year-old Moinuddin Rizvi, a former Uttar Pradesh's public works department official. He along with his son Ghulam Dastigir was arrested in Delhi on May 25, 2007 for espionage.

They were accused of giving maps of military installations to a Pakistani agent. In its chargesheet, the police claimed that they were arrested at Subhash Park in Old Delhi, but Rizvi's wife Munawara Sultan, told THE WEEK that they were arrested at Hotel Romana in Old Delhi. Dastigir, after spending a year in jail, was acquitted by a Delhi court. Rizvi is still in Tihar jail facing trial.

“He [Rizvi] and Dastigir were in Delhi to publish his book Nimazeh Rasool. We don't know why they were arrested,” said Munawara. She said it was perhaps her husband's visit to Pakistan which brought the trouble. The Partition had separated Rizvi's family. While he stayed back in India, his two sisters and a brother migrated to Pakistan. In 2006, said a family member, he visited Karachi to attend the last rites of his brother. According to the police, Rizvi came in touch with the ISI during his Karachi visit and the Pak agency asked him to work for them. “The arrest memo of the police doesn't have the name of the police station and by which authority the accused were arrested. It does not mention the vehicle numbers which were used by the police in the operation and, worse, the court has found the police guilty of fudging the date of arrest,” said defence counsel R.S. Soni. On July 1, 2010, home ministry official Virender Kumar appeared before the Tis Hazari court and confirmed that the date of arrest was overwritten. “My question is if Rizvi and his son were arrested on May 25, 2007 how come the police got their confession on May 24?” asked Soni.

Additional Deputy Commissioner Rajan Bhagat, who is Delhi Police spokesperson, refused to give details of the specific case but said there was no question of planting evidence against anybody. “We work on investigation and specific information. We produce suspects in the court,” he said. “The verdict is in the hands of court.”

The OSA is in practice in India since 1921 but its use had been limited till the terrorist attack on Parliament in 2001. After that the Act became, according to a former intelligence official, an abomination. What was intended for a discrete set of suspects was started being used against people on mere suspicion. The monetary awards and promotions for such arrests added to the rampant misuse. Seven OSA cases were registered in a year after the Parliament attack, including the one against Delhi-based journalist Iftikar Geelani, who was jailed for almost a year.

The arrests and trials in the OSA cases follow a strikingly similar pattern. The accused are brought to court in heavy security cover. In court, all proceedings are held in camera. The evidences are kept in files marked 'secret', and are never disclosed to the designated party. “In dozens of cases the police have used hand-drawn sketches of Army cantonments as evidence against the accused. The language of chargesheets and confessional statements often read similar as if they were written by the same person,” said Supreme Court lawyer Balwant Singh Bilowria, who has handled many OSA cases. Bilowria mentions the sketches of the Meerut cantonment, which have been used in different cases against different people in different parts of the country. On May 27, yet another person, Chand Kumar Prasad, a 24-year-old aircraft mechanic in the Navy's Aircraft Maintenance Unit in Mumbai, was arrested for allegedly carrying a bunch of 'secret' documents that included photographs of Meerut. He is now in Tihar Jail.

With more and more people booked under the OSA, calls are mounting for an explanation why no official is prosecuted for the misuse of the Act. Among those calling for a review of the Act is former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. In the 1990s two of his friends, space scientists S. Nambi Narayanan and D. Sasikumaran, were wrongly booked under the OSA for being part of a spy ring. Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily, as head of the Administrative Reforms Commission, has recommended that the OSA should be repealed and safeguards to protect the security of state should be incorporated in the National Security Act. The home ministry, however, does not agree with the recommendations. An inter-ministerial group is studying the report.

The most disturbing part of the OSA, said Delhi-based journalist Preeti Singh (name changed), is that any person can be detained under it if it is proven that he had been in touch with a foreigner. Herself a victim of the Act, Preeti still does not know why she was arrested and detained for more than three years. “My only crime was that I was a journalist who was writing on Nepal. I used to frequent the Nepal embassy [in Delhi] and perhaps that is the reason I came under the scanner of intelligence agencies and was dubbed a spy,” she said. The Delhi High Court acquitted her of all charges but the prosecution has gone in appeal to the Supreme Court.

In Preeti's case the High Court said that the prosecution had relied mainly on the statement of one witness and that chief metropolitan magistrate had convicted her without assessing whether the documents that the police claimed to have recovered from her were likely to affect the security and integrity of India. She had denied that any document was recovered from her. “I'm estranged from my husband for the past 20 years. After my arrest there was no one to take care of my children. They were left with no option but to fetch food from temple,” she said.

Preeti's story shows how at times the OSA curbs freedom of press. Even in civil and financial affairs, the Act restricts coverage of important issues. A scoop landed former Financial Express reporter Santanu Saikia in trouble. He got a Union cabinet note on divestment of public sector enterprises a day before the cabinet meeting. The newspaper published the story the next day. Three years after a CBI internal probe to find out how the document was leaked, Saikia was booked under the OSA. After ten years of legal fight, a Delhi court acquitted him on February 26, 2009. The court said, 'the publication of the disinvestment document was unlikely to affect the sovereignty and integrity of India and that the publication of a document merely labelled 'secret' shall not render a journalist liable under the OSA'. “It was the biggest mental torture to appear before the court every month for ten years,” said Saikia.  “It all happened just for a genuine story.”

The competing needs for secrecy and the public's right to know have long posed a dilemma for the governments. Though at times the government has allowed intelligence officers to write books on their work and the agencies including one by former Additional Secretary of RAW B Raman that accuses Rajiv Gandhi of covering up the Bofors probe, often it goes after those who speak about the secret world. Former secretary of the R&AW, Major General (retd) V.K. Singh's book, India's External intelligence―Secrets of the Research & Analysis Wing, exposed corruption and a series of abuses in the agency. Three months after the book was published, Singh's house was raided and he was booked under the OSA. “There are senior intelligence officials who have written on the R&AW and the IB. In their books they have given even operations' details. They were never touched,” said Singh. “I became victim of personal vendetta.” The irony is that while Singh is facing trial, his book is available in India.

Clearly it is not always the sensitive issues of national security that make the authorities angry. Social activist Medha Patkar was arrested for saying that the Gujarat government was quietly raising the height of the Sardar Sarovar dam, which would endanger the homes and livelihood of people living in the surrounding villages. She was immediately booked under the OSA for leaking 'state secrets' to the public. The government, however, succumbed to public pressure and released her.

“We launched a campaign against the Sardar Sarovar dam in 1988. The Gujarat government notified the dam site as prohibited area under the OSA. It was a draconian order. We did a unique protest against the Act. We chose 14 people, symbolising the maximum number of years of punishment under the OSA, and marched towards the prohibited dam site,” said Patkar. “The OSA is a colonial law that protects the government from the public.”

It took Dr B.K Subbarao, a retired captain of the Navy, five years of legal fight to prove that the 'top-secret document' of India's nuclear submarine found in his suitcase was in fact his own PhD thesis at the IIT-Bombay. The other document, he said, which the police had claimed to have recovered from him, was available in the library. He was jailed for 20 months on charges of espionage.

The Mumbai High Court acquitted him of all charges, and the verdict was upheld by the Supreme Court. “It is not that every scrap of paper or every document relating to those authorities is to be classified, and even if a classification is put down, such classification may not hold for all time and that it is basic duty of the prosecution to point out how the disclosure of these documents would be a threat to the security of the country,” said the court.

Subbarao has spent the past two decades campaigning for those who were wrongly arrested and jailed. “So many innocent people have been wrongly arrested and jailed under this act. Yet not a single government official or policeman has been punished for ruining somebody's life,” he said.

For Yumnam, who is married and has a two-year-old daughter, life has begun afresh after his release from jail. Yet the dark memories of the torture cell and espionage charges haunt him. “I'm still traumatised. Every time I see a cop I shiver with fear,” he said. “It is not easy to be called a foreign agent, a traitor, and then have a normal life.”

(THE WEEK, Dec 7, 2010)

Troubled History of the OSA

TIME LINE

Troubled History of the OSA

1923-The OSA of Great Britain (enacted in 1889) was "replicated in India in 1923. The act's position in India, still a British colony, is to prevent disclosure of information that the government believes would undermine the state.

1951-After independece, the act was amended , basis of the act was the need to prevent spying and wrongful communication of military secrets.

1967-Amendments were brought post Indo-Pakistan War. It was no longer incumbent upon the police or any investigating agency to "prove the guilt" of a person accused of spying. It was enough to judge his/her character and the circumstances of the case to be prosecuted .

1977-Press Commission observed that merely because a circular is marked secret or confidential, it should not attract the provisions of the Act, if the publication thereof is in the interest of the Public and no question of National Emergency and interest of the State as such arises."

1978-Samba spy case surfaced which led to India's biggest military intelligence goof-up. 60 Army officers, personnel werearrested under the act at the instance of Sarwan Dass.

1985-16 government officials arrested and charged with violations of the Act. Among them: T.N. Kher, the personal assistant to P C Alexander, a top aide to both Indira and Rajiv Gandhi.

1988 - Gujarat Govt clamped the Official Secrets Act in 12 villages for almost 5 months due to the rising upheaval against the Sardar Sarovar Dam.

1988- B K Subbarao, a scientist monitoring India's nuclear submarine project, was arrested for possession of his thesis and was wrongly jailed for 20 months.

2002- Delhi based journalist Iftikar Gilani was arrested under the Act for possessing a paper avilable on internet, the court found him innocent.

1989- Prime Minister V P Singh called for throwing up the act, initiated an examination of questions relating to secrecy, accountability and transparency.

1990 -India's two bright scientists- S. Nambinarayanan and D. Sasikumaran were jailed for being a part of a spy-ring managed by two Maldivian women. The charges were investigated by the CBI and found baseless.

2006:Second Administrative Reforms Commission headed by former Karnataka chief minister Veerappa Moily asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to scrap the Official Secrets Act (OSA),

1923, saying that the Act in its current form is incongruous with the regime of transparency in the right to information era.

2007: Home Minister Shivraj Patil told the parliament that the government did not favour a repeal of the Act but was considering an amendment to an existing section.

2009 - The Delhi high court reduced the powers of the act by ruling publication of a document merely labelled ``secret`` shall not render the journalist liable under the law

2010 - Madhuri Gupta, Indian diplomat posted at the Indian high commission at Islamabad, was arrested on the charges of spying for Pakistan.

2010- Minister of state MHA Ajay Maken told the parliament that the government is not proposing to repeal the act particularly in view of the promulgation of RTI act.

Interview oF Major General (retd) V.K. Singh, former joint secretary, R&AW

"I became victim of personal vendetta "

No government likes it when its spies talk about their jobs. In fact, under the Official Secrets Act, employees of security services are not allowed to disclose anything to anyone about any aspect of their work. Even after retirement, these officers are discouraged to write and speak on intelligence matters. When Major General (retd) V.K. Singh published his book, India's External Intelligence―Secrets of the Research & Analysis Wing, he was charged with the crime of violating the OSA. His house was ransacked and his passport seized. In an interview with THE WEEK, he speaks about the legal struggle, holes in the case against him and how he became a victim of personal vendetta.

Had you ever thought that your book would bring you such trouble?

I had no idea that the book would invite such a reaction from the authorities. While I was in R&AW, I noticed several aberrations such as indiscipline, lack of accountability and corruption. The professionalism and pride that one associates with a premier organisation were absent. I felt that these anomalies should be corrected and this would only happen if they were brought to the notice of the public. In fact, the most important issue that I wanted to raise was corruption. During my stay, I noticed a few cases in R&AW as well as the SPG, where equipment appeared to have been procured from foreign vendors at exorbitant prices or without the mandatory security checks.

What are the charges that have been levelled against you?

The main charges against me are that I have given the charter of R&AW recommended by the Group of Ministers on National Security in 2001; that I revealed the names of officers and locations of R&AW stations; and that I gave details about certain projects in R&AW.

Firstly, the contents of the GOM report were the subject of several articles in 2001, some of which I have referred to in my book. At the time of its formal release on May 23, 2001, the chapter on intelligence was deleted. The report, minus the deleted portions, is still available on the web site of the ministry of defence. The names of all the officers are available on the Department of Personnel and Training web site. In August 2009, the CBI held its biennial conference at Vigyan Bhavan, in Delhi. The list of attendees was circulated to all departments of the government. It had the names and appointments of about 30 officers of R&AW. In a recent decision, the Central Information Commission has ordered the DoPT to give the names of all officers above the rank of joint secretary posted to R&AW from 2001 to 2008. So, the anonymity of R&AW officers is a myth. It is common knowledge that R&AW officers are posted in foreign countries. The location of R&AW stations in India is also known to vendors who are given turn-key projects for installation of equipment, such as VSAT terminals.

Q. There are couple of books written by former intelligence officials including one by B. Raman that accuses Rajiv Gandhi of covering up the Bofors probe. The authors were never harassed. Why were you then booked under the OSA?

The other authors, such as Raman, [former R&AW chief] Sankaran Nair and [former IB joint director] Maloy Dhar, were insiders, who know much more than what they have written. If they are prosecuted, they will reveal many things which would be even more embarrassing. I was an outsider, and thus no threat to them. I became the victim of a personal vendetta. In my book I had mentioned the names of many officers in R&AW who were inefficient and involved in corruption. I had also mentioned a senior officer who did not attend office for eight months after being overlooked for promotion. Though I have not mentioned his name in the book, it was common knowledge that the man was Ashok Chaturvedi, who later became the R&AW chief. I am told he was furious at the mention of this incident in the book. He and his number two, Sanjiv Tripathi, were instrumental in launching the case against me.

Q. Mr. Chaturvedi was your classmate.
A. No, we were in different schools in Allahabad in the fifties and he was several years my junior. His father was in the Police and so was mine.  I often find it hard to convince myself that he can go to such lengths.  I heard from some people that he even advised many RAW officers whose names are mentioned in the book to file defamation cases against me in the court. I wish they had. But by framing me under the OSA they killed two birds with one stone.

Are you saying that there were many attempts to harass and implicate you?

Yes, there were. While I was in R&AW, I had been given a Maruti car, without a driver, to commute. I was then staying at RK Puram. One night the car was stolen from outside my flat. I lodged an FIR next morning but the car was never found. A few months after the case against me was initiated, I came to know that some people in R&AW were trying to locate the person who had been my orderly at that time. They planned to pay him a large sum, and get him to state that the car was not stolen but had been sold by me.

They also tried to plant documents on me. I remember a few weeks before my home was raided on September 21, 2007, a person by the name of Shakti Prakash called me up. He said that he had read my book and that he was being harassed by R&AW as he was being forced to become an agent. I told him that I had retired and had nothing to do with R&AW now, but he pleaded for a meeting. I along with an Army colleague, who had also been with me in R&AW, met him at USI Library in Delhi. He handed over to me a bunch of papers and asked me to go through them and advise him what to do. The folder had letters addressed to the President, Prime Minster and many others, complaining of harassment by R&AW. I brought the folder home and forgot all about it. Later, when the CBI raided my house they took away the folder and produced it in court when they opposed my plea for anticipatory bail. I still don't know whether Shakti Prakash was a plant, or a genuine sufferer at the hands of R&AW.

Q. It is almost three years now since you were booked under the OSA. Have you got any relief from the court?A. The case is still going on in the court. I don't know how much time it will take. After my home was raided, the CBI had taken away my computer, diaries, notebooks and passport. By a court order, some diaries and the passport were returned. I found that the passport was defaced. When I brought this to the notice of the Court the CBI said it had been done by mistake. I then applied for a fresh passport which has been issued. The court has also granted me permission to use several documents that were listed in the evidence in a petition in a service matter that I intend filing soon. Copies of those documents concerning my appointment, salary etc. are already held by me in my personal file.

Q. Are you writing a book on Official Secret Act?
A. Perhaps I will. I have done some research and collected a lot of material from the National Archives on the genesis of the Act. Surprisingly, it was made more draconian after Independence. The Administrative Reforms Commission chaired by Veerappa Moily had recommended that it should be scrapped or amended, after the enactment of the RTI Act. After he became the Law Minister, we thought this would be one of the first things he would do, as part of the judicial reforms agenda. But this has not happened, due to opposition from the Home Ministry.  I think it is a draconian law and should be repealed.

Q. Many insist that, if no action had been taken against you, it would have given the green light to any disaffected former intelligence officers to write about intelligence agencies?A. Not all officers who write books are disaffected. People like Sankaran Nair, (RAW Chief). T. Subramaniam (Cabinet Secretary), General V.P. Malik (Army Chief) had reached the top of their professions. They can hardly be considered ‘disaffected’. Recently, an official history of MI-6, the British intelligence agency, has been published. There are several books written by officers who have served in the CIA. Such books form a part of history. As you are aware, in 2008 a gag order has been issued through a gazette, according to which all officers serving in such agencies will have to give an undertaking that they will not write anything after retirement. If they do, the officer will forfeit his pension. I believe the DOPT has asked the Ministry of Defence also to publish a similar gazette for armed forces personnel. If that happens, soon there will be no Indian military history.

Q. What is the biggest drawback in the Official Secret Act?
A. The OSA violates all tenets of humanitarian law. The rules of evidence do not apply. A person can be convicted merely on suspicion, his character or past conduct. If one has the telephone number of a foreigner in his diary or cell phone, he is presumed to have been in communication with a foreign agent.

How easy is it for intelligence agencies to wrongly implicate a person?

Very easy. The Samba spy case is a perfect example. Innocent people spent 14 years in jail on charges trumped up by military intelligence. More recently, Captain B.K. Subbarao and Iftikar Geelani were similarly prosecuted and later acquitted. Unlike the famous Dreyfus case in France, where the persons who had falsely implicated him were punished, in India this never happens. On the other hand, they get out-of-turn promotions and monetary awards.

(THE WEEK, Dec 7, 2010)

Knots of conviction

The resolution of the issue of death sentence awarded to Sarabjit Singh after 15 years in jail in Pakistan may well be a test case in the ongoing peace process.  A report on the spies, prisoners and the peace process 

Syed Nazakat in New Delhi & Satinder Bains in Chandigarh

Often life imitates art. In the spectacularly successful movie Veer Zara, an Indian officer is put in a Pakistani jail for 40 years in a story of war, hate, revenge and love. Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf had made an off-the-cuff remark on the unfair nature of the movie when he visited India for the cricket series. Now the president has a chance to prove how fair the Pakistan government is, when he takes a decision whether or not to pardon an Indian convicted to death on alleged spying charges.

When on August 19 Pakistan's Supreme Court upheld a death sentence on Manjit Singh alias Sarabjit Singh after 15 years of prosecution for his alleged involvement as a RAW agent in the 1990 Lahore bomb blasts, it created a groundswell of emotion  in India.

A presidential pardon for Sarabjit Singh will be seen as a great goodwill measure in keeping with the momentum that the peace process has generated. If Musharraf washes his hands off the Supreme Court judgement, then the issue could snowball considering the emotive nature of the issue. No Indian spy or prisoner has been executed in Pakistan though five alleged spies have been sentenced to death. Going by precedent at least there are chances of Sarabjit Singh being pardoned but the issue has become yet another major landmark in the ongoing peace process.

Sarabjit Singh is the fifth Indian to be awarded a death sentence by a Pakistani court. The death sentence of the other four were commuted on various grounds giving hope that Sarabjit Singh too would be pardoned. Some 117 Indians have been convicted for various offences including spying in Pakistan. The case of Sarabjit Singh however continues to get curiouser by the day. The first is the case of his identity. His family members say that his name is Sarabjit Singh and not Manjit Singh as the Pakistani authorities refer to him. If at all Sarabjit Singh was carrying the fake identity of Manjit Singh, it again gives rise to the suspicion that he was indeed an Indian agent. But RAW and intelligence officials are clear that Manjit Singh was not their man. Since India has officially requested Pakistan to commute his sentence, it suggests that the government could be clean on the issue.

Pakistan official however say that Sarabjit Singh himself did not contest that identity during the long trial which finally lend to the death penalty. His family members' statements that he is not a spy cannot convince the Pakistani authorities, since family members are quite unlikely to know the job profile of a spy.

It has been traumatic time for Sarabjit's family in Bhikiwind near Amritsar. His youngest daughter obviously has no recollection of her father who strayed into Pakistan in 1990 when she was just a few days old. His eldest daughter Swapandeep Kaur who was just three years old then now says there is no way her father could have been a spy since he was not educated. She points out that in 1990, there was no fencing on the Indo-Pak border and farmers from both sides used to stray into neighbouring territory. 

"If they kill Sarabjit, we will also make five nooses and hang ourselves. The government of India and Pakistan will be responsible for our deaths," says Sarabjit's wife Sukhpreet Kaur. "My husband is completely innocent."

Dalbir Kaur, who along with the wife and family of Sarabjit Singh has threatened to commit suicide is now confident that her brother will be released. "Support to save the life of my brother has come from all quarters. Till a few days back I had never expected that the Indian Prime Minister and parliamentarians would come to Sarabjit's rescue," she told Sahara Time. The death sentence and the resultant uproar has also brought into focus the case of 923 civilian prisoners and 54 PoWs, which the Indian government claims are languishing in Pakistani jails. "But Pakistan has acknowledged the presence of only 182 civilian prisoners and does not acknowledge the presence of any other Indian PoW in the country," Minister of state for external affairs Rao Inderjit Singh told Rajya Sabha on August 4. This issue has been discussed over the years without much effect. The first substantial progress came when Pakistan released 800 Indian fishermen between January and March 2005.

The families and relatives of these Indian PoWs haven't yet given up their search for their loved ones who, they believe, are still dying a slow death in Pakistani jails. Their belief was reaffirmed after Rooplal Sahariya, an Indian spy who was released by Pakistan on April 2000, after spending over 26 years in cramped prison cells in Pakistan, surviving a stroke and a death sentence. He told reporters that he saw other Indian prisoners of war in detention in Sialkot, Multan, Sahiwal and Lahore. "There are around 50 such prisoners, called pagal [mad] Indians, most of whom have lost their mental balance due to years of physical torture. Even if their terms have ended, they cannot be sent home because they don't remember their addresses," he had said then.

Onkar Nath Budhwar, another suspected Indian spy from Ferozepur in Punjab who was arrested in Jajjasadu post on the border was also lucky to escape the gallows. In 1972, session judge Syed Mohammed Abbas Shah sentenced him to death. But he was finally released on December 9, 1974 on the orders of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, after he signed the Shimla agreement.

With the onset of the place process much progress has been made in identifying the prisoners and getting them released. Pakistan has granted consular access to Indian prisoners in January, February, June and July this year. Indian prisoners in Pakistan were allowed to write and receive letters from their families in India. According to the Pakistani media, about 611 Pakistani prisoners are languishing in Indian jails, including 457 who have reportedly completed their prison terms but awaiting release due to delay in Pakistan confirming their status.

During the foreign secretary- level talks held on Dec 27-28, 2004 at Islamabad, it was agreed that immediate notification of the arrested Indian/Pakistani nationals would be provided to the high commissions through the foreign ministries. It was also decided to provide consular access to all the civilian prisoners, including fishermen, held in each other's country within three months from the date of their arrest and repatriation would be immediate after the completion of sentence and nationality verification. 

(Sahara Time, 2007)

Interview of Mirwaiz Umar Farooq

'Within a year or two we will reach very close to the resolution of Kashmir problem' 

As the dialogue process between the Kashmiri separatists and New Delhi enters the crucial phase, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, 31, has emerged as the lead player for the All Parties Hurriyat Conference. The founder and present chairman of the Hurriyat, the religious head of Kashmiri Muslims led the five member delegation of a separatist conglomerate of Kashmir - All Parties Hurriyat Conference – to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi last week. It was for the first time that Kashmiri separatist leaders had talks with the prime minister himself to end the 15-year-long uprising in Kashmir. Mirwaiz said the talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was a historic first step towards a solution to Kashmir and added that in his meeting with Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf in New York next week he will ask him to take steps to push the process forward. In an exclusive interview to Sahara Time correspondent Syed Nazakat in New Delhi, the Mirwaiz spoke about the marathon meeting, peace process and his vision of how to solve the Kashmir problem. Excerpts:  

Q. You had two rounds of talks with the previous NDA government and now this time you met the Prime Minister himself. Are you satisfied with the talks?

A. Yes, of course. Kashmir is a complex problem so when we talk of Kashmir we cannot address all the problems in one meeting. Everyone who was present there said that this process has to be carried on. The Prime Minister also said that a committee will be formed to follow up the outcome of the talks. And you have to understand that it was the highest level of talks wherein you are directly talking with the Prime Minister of the country. The talks cannot go to a higher level than this and if we don't succeed here this time then there is nothing else in sight.

Q. Have you asked anything specific from the Prime Minister during the talks?

A. We did not ask for anything specific. Our goal this time was to set the pace of the talk's process. We made it point to tell the PM that the Kashmir problem needed to be solved. And I don't remember he even once said that such and such a thing is not possible. We had free and frank discussions on subjects like violations of human rights, reduction of troops in the valley. Our point of view has been received well by the Government of India and that is what matters. However, he emphasised that a step-to-step approach is needed to find ab honourable and durable settlement of the Kashmir problem. Our main goal is on the need to consolidate the process of dialogue.  

Q. As the Prime Minister has emphasised the need to end the violence, do you think you are in a position to stop the violence in Kashmir?

A. We promised the PM that whatever we can do in this regard we will do.  I am also going to New York where I will meet President Musharraf on September 17. I will seek his support to move this process ahead. It is now a triangular process. I will tell him to further use his influence to help create an atmosphere inside Kashmir so that this process is not jeopardised  

Q. When will the next Hurriyat- New Delhi meeting take place?

A. The date has not yet been set up for the second round of talks. But once Dr Singh is back from New York we will meet for the second rounds of talks. That is what has been agreed on. Nobody wants to repeat the experience of our talks with the National Democratic Alliance government. We are meeting now after 17 months. A lot could have been achieved during this intervening period.  

Q. Are you concerned that the hardline faction of separatists accuses you of betraying the cause?

A. They are all our colleagues and we do have some differences with them.  But we can't keep the dialogue process hostage to anybody. Yes, it is very unfortunate that at a time when we needed to unite and to speak in one voice, we are divided and are speaking in different voices.  

Q. And still you are saying that the Hurriyat is in a strong position today?

A. Our visit to Pakistan has helped us to consolidate our position not only within the valley but also in Pakistan. We met Kashmir leaders in Muzafarabad and also had talks with Pakistan. Everyone agreed with our perception of dialogue and that is why I say we are now on a stronger wicket than as compared to 2004. I must add that the India-Pakistan dialogue is also on the right track and the confidence building measures have helped in moving forward.  

Q. But there were threats from the militant outfits also.

A. The mood today is pro-dialogue. When you look at the situation on the ground when we started holding talks in 2004 we could see there was little hesitancy from Pakistan to support this process and so many things were being said and printed in the media. The militants issued statements rejecting the process. Today apart from one organisation nobody is saying anything. The people are watching things closely and they wish that the peace process should move on.  

Q. How do you respond to critics who say that you have no mandate to speak on behalf of the people of J&K?

A. If we are nobody and have no mandate to speak on behalf of the people than why did the Prime Minister invite us for the dialogue.  

Q. Kashmiri Pandits are saying that they should also be involved in the talks. Your comment?

A. They are a part of Kashmir and we have already started our efforts to communicate with the Kashmiri Pandits. In fact, we have met a delegation of Kashmiri Pandits a month ago in Srinagar. And we are planning to go to Jammu to encourage Kashmiri Pandits to return to their homeland.  

Q. Is it feasible for New Delhi to talk only to the Kashmiris, leaving out Pakistan?

A. No two parties are in a position to resolve the problem on their own. This is because Pakistan has a part of Kashmir. If we really have to solve the Kashmir problem than we have to involve all the parties of the dispute – India, Pakistan and the people of Kashmir.  This could be a breakthrough  

Q. So you are still sticking to tripartite talks.

A. That is the only way to solve this (Kashmir) problem.  

Q. Then where is the open mind that you have been talking about?

A. We are talking about an open mind in the sense that we are not insisting that India, Pakistan and Kashmiris should sit at the negotiating table tomorrow itself. India and Pakistan are talking, we have had talks with Pakistan and now we are talking with India. And that is why I am repeatedly saying that for the first time the dialogue process aimed at a permanent solution to Kashmir is on the right track.  

Q. What is the most important thing that the Indian government should do now?

A. Everybody realises that if we have to move forward then all of us have to contribute whether it is India, Pakistan or the people of Kashmir. But India has done a lot to pave the way for the final and peaceful settlement of Kashmir issue. We have been promised by Dr Manmohan Singh that human rights violations will end and there will be withdrawal of troops from Kashmir. We have also been told that the release of political prisoners will be seen. The right of Kashmiris to self-determination cannot be limited to joining only India or Pakistan. We want an option in which we would be masters of our own destiny.  

Q. So what is the solution?

A. We have told the Prime Minister that when we meet next time we will put forward our proposal for the solution of the Kashmir problem.  

Q. What about the option of making the Line of Control (LoC) into an international border?

A. It's never going to be acceptable to Kashmiris because it excludes part of Kashmir. There is talk of making Kashmir a confederation, a "semi-nation" like Ireland, with India and Pakistan in joint control of defense and possibly also communications and foreign affairs. Then there is the idea of a buffer state in which Kashmir's border will be absolutely porous and controlled by India and Pakistan on their respective sides. Another option is the [1950] Dixon Plan, whereby the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley goes to Pakistan and the Hindu and Buddhist areas of the state to India. We don't necessarily agree with any of these options. But we need to sit down and talk.

Q. During your recent visit to Pakistan you talked about what you called United States of Kashmir. Your comment.

A. We desire India and Pakistan to give a free hand to the Kashmiri leadership to come up with new proposals. We want to move beyond the traditional line. I know Kashmir is a complex issue with so many complexities. But I am quite sure that if we keep the movement on, leave the rigid approach and try to see Kashmir as a human problem then the solution of the problem is not that far away.  

Q. How long do you think it will take to arrive at a political solution of Kashmir that you are striving for?

A. I can't specify the time frame, but we are confident of arriving at one. But again a lot depends upon the Indian government. And it was nice to know that Dr Singh understands the seriousness of the problem. He acknowledges that whereas the problem is essentially a political one, it has its human dimension and the sufferings of the people. I am quite sure that if we keep talking with seriousness and purpose within a year or two we will reach very close to the resolution of the Kashmir problem.  

(Sahara Time, 2006)

Interview of Abdul Qayyum Khan

              'There is no authority which can create an independent Kashmir' 

Sardar Muhammad Abdul Qayyum Khan, 80, four times president and prime minister of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir or which he emphasizes as Azad Kashmir was a part of the Pathan invasion in 1947. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf handpicked him to chair the 22-member National Kashmir Committee, which spearheads Islamabad's efforts for a solution to the Kashmir trouble. The man who actively encouraged militancy across the border in J&K, provided a base for armed separatists in his autonomous state, the elderly, soft-spoken Kashmiri is seen as a moderate today. Last week, he was in New Delhi to participate in the 'heart-to-heart talks', organized by Indian Council of World Affairs. The conference was first scheduled to be held in Jammu but Sardar Qayyum Khan did not want to travel to Jammu on an Indian visa, which he said amounts to accepting Jammu and Kashmir as a part of India. In an exclusive interview to Sahara Time's correspondent Syed Nazakat, Khan spoke about the India Pakistan peace process, 1947 invasion, militant training camps in PoK and how to win peace in the valley. Excerpts…  

Q. India and Pakistan are engaged in peace talks for the last two years. How do you view the ongoing peace talks?

A. It is very unfortunate that the things we should have discussed 20 years back we are discussing today. Anyway it is always better late then never. I think the peace initiative between the two countries headed by Dr Manmohan Singh and General Pervez Musharraf is on the right track.  

Q.What steps do you think India and Pakistan can take to strengthen the peace process?

A. The two countries would have to strengthen and enhance the confidence building measures. We must move forward step by step. I am convinced that an intra-Kashmir dialogue should be allowed. Kashmiris from both sides should be allowed to sit down and discuss. They should be given the task to find out how the situation can be de-escalated.  

Q. If I am right, you were a part of the Pathan invasion in 1947 that split the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir into two parts?

A. Yes I was there in the middle of the 1947 fight. What motivated us to take up arms is that Maharaja Hari Singh started deploying his troops along the Pakistan border. I was an army man, I could very clearly see he was trying to seal off the border with Pakistan. At that time there was only one Kashmir. We decided to launch a political movement. But the Dogra army opened fire on the marchers. So, we started an armed retaliation. I organized the forces at that time. At that time we were fighting the Dogra army. There was no Indian army. Then, of course, the Indian army came in -- after the accession, although there was no accession instrument.  

Q. How do you respond to the view that Pakistan, through the Pathan invasion in 1947, authored the Kashmir trouble?

A. The Pakistan government had nothing to do with it, but the government of Pakistan could not resist it as the Pathans became violent.  

Q. There are reports that militant training camps still exist in PoK. So how do you view the peace process can move forward?

A. Look, you are once again falling into the old trap. If you lay down preconditions, then Pakistan will also stick to its old position, the U.N. resolution.  And tell me do you really think that the militant camps are needed anymore?  

Q. What do you mean?

A. I don't think there is any need to recruit and train new boys.

There are already many boys who have got arms training in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Muzaffarabad.  

Q. How many have gained arms training?

A. I am not sure about the exact number. But the number would not be less then 25,000 to 30,000. They can't be totally stopped. It is impossible.  

Q. Is the United Jihad Council, the umbrella organisation of 12 militant outfits operating in Jammu and Kashmir, under Musharraf's control?

A. It is not under strict control that way. But they can be dealt with. They are the people who are interested in the resolution of the problem.

Q. Do you agree with the view that it is the time for militants to put down the gun and pave the way for political dialogue?

A. They have laid down arms in the past and even declared truce. But what happened later? So you have to understand their position also. It is very difficult for them to stop without offering the people anything tangible after 16 years and over 80,000  lives. The violence should not impede the dialogue process. We have to learn to deal with the situation. Once a process is set in, most of the people with arms, they will automatically feel there is a process on.  

Q. So you would not advise them to shun arms now.

A. How can I do that? If I did that without offering anything to them, I would be responsible for the disaster that may happen later on. I can't hold myself responsible for it.  

Q. You have been the president and PM of PoK, what kind of support did you provide militants?

A. We provided them moral and political support. 

Q. And weapons…

A. Weapons are no problem. If you have money, you can buy weapons in India. Weapons are the most easily accessible things today. 

Q. How free is the government in PoK from Pakistan interference? It is widely believed that the government in Muzaffarabad is governed by Islamabad?

A. It is a common thing that if you have a neighbour who is incompetent, you may meddle in his affairs. But if you have a competent government, there will be no interference. In my case, there was no interference. Rather, I was interfering in their affairs. Unlike this side of Kashmir (J&K) we enjoy complete autonomy. We have a president, a prime minister and an assembly which performs the job of legislation. We have our own election commission which conducts elections in our part of Kashmir.  

Q. But despite what you claim is complete freedom, as compared to this side of Kashmir your side of Kashmir is underdeveloped?

A. (laughs) India should be happy about that.   

Q. There is a section of separatists, who think that independent Kashmir is the only solution to the Kashmir problem?

A. Independent Kashmir doesn't exist anywhere. You cannot create it. It doesn't suit India, Pakistan China and it even does not suit the Kashmiris themselves.  There is no authority, no organisation which can create an independent Kashmir.  

Q. So what according to you is the solution to Kashmir? How far away are we from it?

A. I have no solution in my mind except that India, Pakistan and the Kashmiris should sit down and open-heartedly discuss all options on the table for a long time and then find a way out. We have been moving along by accidents. An accident can join us; an accident can set us apart too. Right now I am not bothered about a solution. What can really make a change is setting in motion a process. Whatever comes out of it will be acceptable.  

Q. About the time frame…

A. To be honest, I have no idea how long it would take us to solve the problem.  

Q. Does the solution you envisage include Kashmiri Pandits?

A. Every Kashmiri, irrespective of caste and religion, is part of it. 

Q. Reports are there that Musharraf has invited CM Mufti Mohamed Sayeed, his daughter and PDP president, Mehbooba Mufti and National Conference president Omer Abdullah to PoK and Pakistan. Are you comfortable with the visit of these leaders you used to once call 'puppets of New Delhi'?

A. I have no problem if a Kashmiri travels to another Kashmir.

(Sahara Time, 2007)

Peace mission to Kashmir

As the PM returns from Kashmir the big question still remains: Will normalcy finally prevail? 

By Syed Nazakat in Srinagar

The sun rose over the Sher-e-Kashmir International Convention Centre (SKICC) like a white apparition. Inside the complex, around Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, sat 30 Kashmiri leaders to see how they could win peace in troubled Kashmir. Down and around the complex, there was nobody on the boulevard road save the alert soldiers. The whole Srinagar city had been taken over by soldiers. The only banner one spotted stood outside the entrance of SKICC read- "Committed to peace, progress and prosperity". 

Yet violence returned after the meet with four persons killed in  grenade attack.

The huge deployment of troops and the tense atmosphere of Srinagar city had made one wonder how different was today's Kashmir Peace mission to Kashmir from the early 1990s when militancy erupted in the valley. For one man who has seen Kashmir all through these years the simple question after the Prime Minister concluded his second round of talks with the Kashmiri mainstream leaders on May 25, was whether there was any hope at all of resolving the Kashmir issue?

"On the face of it the answer is simply no," says Wajahat Habibullah, a top bureaucrat and a man who worked behind the scenes to piece together the Kashmir tangle. "If we have to succeed in solving this problem we have to keep the balance between Islamabad, New Delhi and Kashmir," he said. It was for the first time that an Indian Prime Minister had held talks directly with Kashmiri leaders in Kashmir. The message from the PMO was clear : the PM is serious about progress in Kashmir. "I have conveyed to President Musharraf that we are sincerely committed to peace and development in this region. We are awaiting Pakistan's response on some concrete suggestions which we have made," Manmohan Singh said.
In reply to a question, Singh said that the Centre is ready to find ways and means to talk to militant groups if they shun violence and choose the democratic path to resolve the issues. He said that the scope of homecoming of those youth who have crossed the LoC and want to return could be discussed at an appropriate forum, keeping in view all security aspects.  The Prime Minister said though he was not an astrologer to predict the mindset of any body, he, however, hoped that the separatists would participate in any future Round Table Conference.

The big achievement of the second round table was that at the end of it five working groups were constituted to look into all issues affecting Jammu and Kashmir and it was hoped that these groups would work towards finding a common ground and forging a consensus on specific issues through a time-bound result-oriented approach. But the Prime Minister's round table has given an insight on how hard it is to win peace in Kashmir. The Hurriyat leaders and other separatists who met the Prime Minister and also shared a table with the mainstream political parties many times in the past refused to sit with who they call ' a bunch of political hypocrites'. The National Conference categorically stated that it was not going to meet the Prime Minister if he holds a separate meeting with the separatists. The BJP boycotted the round table. A political party of the Sikh community living in Kashmir asked the Prime Minister why they had not been invited to the round table.
Good homework was also lacking in the second round. Not only separatist leaders but even those who participated in the first round of talks boycotted it. Out of the 41 invitees only 30 turned up for the talks. "We don't know about the agenda of the meeting. We received the invitation letter just a few days before the round table," said Sajjad Lone, another prominent separatist leader who was invited by the Prime Minister. "How could we be a part of any process where we don't know who is invited and what they are going to talk about," Lone said.

Late on Thursday afternoon, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, chairman of the Hurriyat Conference, an alliance of two dozen political separatist groups, told Sahara Time that they would not like to be a part of the "crowd". The Hurriyat considers that the crowd comprising political hypocrites and Ikhwanis (former militants), with no agenda can hardly produce a result in terms of the permanent settlement of the Kashmir problem. But he welcomed the Prime Minister's initiative to solve the Kashmir issue.

Two issues - autonomy and self-rule - have remerged out of the second round of the round table. National Conference president Omer Abdullah said that his party has put forward a greater autonomy proposal before the Prime Minister. "We are hopeful that this time our proposal will not be turned down," Omer said.
The big immediate challenge for the government will be to make sure that what the Prime Minister termed 'zero tolerance' should be implemented on the ground. "Without security, talk of a peace process is academic. If we can't stop people from being shot down, it is just words," said Pervez Imroz, lawyer and human rights activist.

Since its eruption in 1989, militancy has claimed at least 85,000 lives, mostly innocent people. Before summer there had been a long lull in the fighting. New Delhi even claimed that Kashmir was once again safe for tourism. But recently the killings of 35 people in the mountain villages of Doda and Udhampur on April 30, the attack on the Congress rally in Srinagar city in which 11 people were killed, the series of grenade blasts, the Fidayeen attack on a BSF vehicle and one after another a number of bomb blasts on the eve of the round table clearly show that there is no sign that insurgency is winding down in Kashmir.   The Prime Minister's visit just provides the militants an excuse to raise the ante. Despite all the security arrangements the militants still managed to lob five hand grenades in Srinagar.

According to the security agencies in Srinagar the situation is about to get worse. Over the past few years militancy has taken a decidedly dangerous turn, with young boys joining the fray. The call for Jihad is still rising in the streets of Srinagar and the far off villages of Kashmir, and is being answered. A top intelligence officer in Srinagar told Sahara Time that the newcomers have sophisticated arms, high-tech communication equipment and the motivation to die while killing their enemy. " If we kill four militants. Pakistan sends four more," says S Shirinivasan who heads the intelligence branch of the BSF in Kashmir. "And the problem is that the militants need just a few men to keep the pot boiling". An entire generation of Kashmiris has grown up with no experience or understanding of peace They have only the faintest memory of what it was like not to have soldiers on the streets and sandbags on roads.

"There is such a high percentage of young people who see their future as something totally black," says Manzor Ahamed. And it is very dangerous.

Seventeen years into the turbulence that turned Kashmir from a tourist paradise into a killing field, there seems only one way for peace to return: that the three sides in the conflict - the Kashmir leaders and the governments of India and Pakistan - should move forward. All are saying that they want to end differences in outlook to bring peace in Kashmir. But no one is quite clear how to find a common ground.  


(Sahara Time, 2007)