93,000 await the outcome

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32958, 3 July 1972, Page 13

93,000 await the outcome

(X.Z.P A-Reuter—Copyright) . MEERUT (India), June 30. i While the Indian and Pakistani leaders are closeted in crucial summit talks in the cool hill town of Simla, people affected by their discussions are sweating it out on the baking plains of North India. Among problems to be solved at the talks between Mrs Gandhi and President: Bhutto is the fate of the 93,000 Pakistanis, mainly soldiers, captured by the Indian Army in the brief war of last December. No official statement has been made about where the prisoners of war are held,; relatives are told to address; their letters to a camp code' number, and the mail isj passed on by the Indian Gov-: emment But evidence from various! official and informed sources: indicate that the camps—j

■there are at least 30 of them [ —are scattered over the (plains from Assam, in the . | north-east to Rajasthan, in ■ the north-west. 1 At this time of the year, ■ the heat in many of these J regions is blistering. No foreigners, other than I'lnternational Red Cross . officials, are allowed to visit ' the prisoners, but a limited • impression of life in their t camps can be gained on a visit to Meerut, a northern ’(town 40 miles north-east of New Delhi. Anyone driving along the s road to the Himalayan hill i station of Mussoorie, 140 t j miles north-east of the Indian ! capital, cannot fail to observe • the three barbed-wire fences. ! the floodlit watchtowers, and r the armed men that guard Camp No. 28. ; About 2000 Pakistani civit lians taken captive in Bang- ,! ladesh are housed here, ;i according to informed !! sources. >: The area between the • [ middle and inner Bft high [fences is at the moment a >[riot of vegetation, but the >1 earth between the middle and -| outer perimeter wire is trod-

den bare by the Indian soldiers who patrol with automatic weapons. At intervals, a soldier with a machine-gun sits on a 50fthigh wooden watchtower, from which two powerful searchlights blaze out at night. The camp is inside Meerut’s military cantonment; it was here in 1857 that the Indian mutiny against British colonial rule began. Attempts to turn off the main road to look more closely at the camp are blocked by squads of military policemen. One can, however, see the Pakistani prisoners—the men in lungis (cotton sarongs), the women in burkhas (heavy veils worn by Moslem women)—sitting around the camp, or doing the washing. Among them are some children.

Their apparent lassitude probably stems partly from boredom, and almost certainly from the fierce summer heat which, until earlier this week, with the onset of the monsoon, has been topping 110 degrees Fahrenheit every day.

By Western standards, the ugly brick barracks of the camp are extremely spartan, but they are considerably better than the homes of tens of millions of Indians. International Red Cross representatives have declared the prisoners’ living conditions to be satisfactory. Other known camps include those at Ranchi, in Bihar, near Agra (the site of the famous Taj Mahal); Jhansi, in the state of Uttar Pradesh; and Jabalpur, in Madhya Pradesh.

Among the inmates of Jabalpur, an important British military base before Britain gave India independence in 1947, are believed to be Lieutenant-General A. A. K. Niazi, who commanded the Pakistan forces in East Pakistan, and Major-General Rao Farman Ali, the military adviser to the civilian governor there.

The new State of Bangladesh, which emerged from what had been East Pakistan, wants to try these men on charges of war crimes.

Their fate is a certain topic at the Simla summit