Life after secret mission: The ‘spies’ that none loves

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj  in Jalandhar 

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Five ‘Pakistani nationals’ allegedly involved in espionage and lodged in north-west Delhi’s Lampur detention centre have reportedly been rendered stateless. Reports say they completed their prison terms, but have nowhere to go as Pakistan has “refused” to accept them despite Indian authorities writing to their counterparts over the past five years. Their cases surfaced a month after the two countries exchanged a list of prisoners lodged in each other’s jails under a 2008 agreement on consular access. 

Sources say India handed a list of 250 Pakistani civilian prisoners and 54 others who have competed their jail terms. It is not known if the five ‘Pak nationals’ figure on the list. Pakistan, too, handed a list of 58 such civilians. The Indian side, sources say, also conveyed New Delhi’s concerns about Pakistan’s denial of consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav (former Naval officer) and Hamid Nehal Ansari (a Mumbai resident reportedly lodged in a Peshawar jail six years after he failed to find his love in that country and ‘disappeared’). 

Disowned, disregarded

The lists, generally, don’t mention the ‘convicted spies’ because of disownment the two sides insist on. That leads to a very complicated situation for securing the release of such prisoners. Only rights activists on both sides of the border struggle to get them freed. In Pakistan the Ansar Burney Trust International is actively working in such cases. And in Punjab, from where several border area residents are believed to be lodged on the other side, Ranjan Lakhanpal keeps up his fight. He is also chairman of the World Human Rights Protection Council. 

An advocate, Lakhanpal has been working for a decade to make the release of the ‘spies’ possible, free of cost. He says four such cases of ‘spies; are pending with the Supreme Court. “The services of ‘spies’ are not recognized by either the government or those in their social circle. The result is they along with their families are left to suffer,” says Lakhanpal. “In several cases, the post-return life is even more traumatic.”

With the efforts of people like him and Ansar Burney, Kashmira Singh, an alleged Indian spy who was lodged in Pakistani jail was released in 2008. Kashmira’s wife Paramjit Kaur says she has suffered a lot after he remained in jail for 35 years. “When he was arrested by the Pakistan government, our daughter was five years old. When he returned, I was already a grandmother,” says Kaur. Kashmira’s hands bear bruise marks, and his back still hurts – the result of severe physical torture in jails. His wife says the government has not done anything for the family. 

Still hiding, from his own

Surinder Pal (64) of Barhian village of Hoshiarpur is living in disguise in his own country. This time for another reason: It started when he was just 23. He was recruited as a spy and went to Pakistan, changing his name to Iqbal Khan. Back in India, ‘Chhinda’ – as he was called by his neighbours -- wants to hide himself, clamming on what happened years ago. He wants to forget everything. Can he?

He crossed the border, for the first time, in1976, and was arrested in Pakistan in 1979. Pal was interrogated and tortured continuously. He was shifted to various jails from 1979 to 1988. And when he came back, he was nobody. That lost identity hit him so badly that Surinder Pal doesn’t even want to speak about the “tragedy” of his life.

“Who is going to listen to us now?” says his wife angrily. He murmurs: “I have gone through a lot. You cannot imagine what it means to be a captive in the enemy country’s jail. I suffered every pain when I was young.” Pal works in the night shift in a private factory doing menial job as a machine operator, earning less than Rs 10,000 a month. 

His return was not simple. “I wrote an unstamped letter (because it would reach its destination) to my parents who were in Canada. Luckily the letter reached them and they approached an advocate David Cook who later became a minister in Canada. Cook helped me out and somehow I reached India.”