Jaipur man walks free after 36 yrs in Pak jail

Tribune News Service

Amritsar/Jaipur, August 13

Jaipur native Gajanand Sharma, 69, was among the 29 Indian prisoners repatriated on Monday via the Attari-Wagah joint check post (JCP) on the eve of Pakistan’s Independence Day (August 14). None of his family members were there to receive him. They were not intimated about his release, after 36 long years. 

Gajanand, a labourer, and other freed prisoners — all fishermen — will remain in the custody of the immigration authorities till their kin turn up to take them home  As a reciprocal goodwill gesture, seven Pakistani prisoners too have been repatriated by the Indian authorities. 

Gajanand, then aged 33, went missing from Jaipur in 1982. He was unable to recall under what circumstances he had crossed over. Indian officials too were silent about it.

Back home in Fatehram ka Tiba, under Nahargarh police station, Gajanand’s wife Makhani Devi, their sons Rakesh and Mukesh, their wives and children are eagerly awaiting his arrival. The family had no clue about his whereabouts till approached by officials from the office of the SP (Jaipur-Rural) in May this year. They wanted to verify Gajanand’s antecedents.

Mukesh, who works with the Social Welfare Department at Jaipur, said his mother had to toil hard to raise the children all by herself. 

“I was only 12 when my father went missing,” he said.

“Being illiterate, my mother did not file a ‘missing person’s report. Nor did the police act on her complaint. But to our utter surprise, a police team approached us  in the first week of May, carrying papers that testified my father was alive and lodged in the Lahore jail.

“Subsequently, our local MP Ramcharan Bohara approached the External Affairs Ministry to expedite the process for his release. We were told to wait for a call from the External Affairs Ministry. That’s why we did not reach Wagah to receive him. All of us, especially my mother, are only too impatient to be with him,” he said, sobbing.