The Indian Express: Gujarat: Monday, January 08, 2018.
Sitting on a
mud-plastered floor in front of their house in this border village in Kutch
district, Kamabai Sama Karima, 49, and her daughter Raziyabai, 20, are
stitching a quilt together on a wintry morning. Kamabai’s weather-beaten face
breaks out in a smile as she watches her grandson playing with a corner of the
quilt.
But that is
not the only reason for the smile. Three months ago, she heard her husband,
Ismail, 52, a cattle herder who went missing over nine years ago, on August 28,
2008, was still alive and in a jail in Pakistan. Rafiq Jat, a resident of a
nearby village who was also a prisoner in Pakistan, told her, after his release
in October 2017, that he and Ismail were together in a Karachi prison.
“After my
husband did not return home that day, we launched a search for him in the
village but couldn’t find him. The search continued for days in nearby
villages, until I was told that he had lost his way and crossed over to
Pakistan side of the border. I never heard about him again, until Rafiq Jat
returned from Pakistan,” says the mother of nine.
However,
unknown to Kamabai, the government of India has had information about her
husband’s imprisonment in Pakistan for four years now. But it has not been able
to bring him back home, although his sentence ended in October 2016, because,
by its own admission, it has not completed his “nationality verification”.
Kamabai
believes that her husband either inadvertently crossed over to Pakistan side of
the international border, near Khavda in western Kutch, after losing his way,
or was abducted by Pakistani security forces. Nana Dinara is about 80 km from
Bhuj, the district headquarters of Kutch, and 50 km from the Pakistan border.
The Nana Dinara village panchayat comprises the vandh (cattle herder)
settlements of Allaiya, Fazal, Mavar and Harun. Kamabai lives in Allaiya vandh,
which has about 500 people.
In response
to a query filed under the Right to Information Act by Jatin Desai, an activist
of the Pakistan-India People’s Forum for Peace & Democracy (PIPFPD), the
Indian High Commission in Pakistan said Ismail had been provided consular
access on February 7, 2014. A month later, in March 2014, the High Commission
sent a request to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for verifying Ismail’s
nationality.
The
“nationality verification” begins when the government receives information from
its diplomatic mission abroad that its consular officials have met an Indian
prisoner in the host country’s jail. The MHA sends the address and other family
details that the prisoner gives during his meeting with consular officials to
the state government’s Home department, which relays this information to the
district, tehsil, block and village officials for verification.
The RTI reply
to Desai, sent in November 2017, states that the “nationality verification” of
Ismail was “still awaited”, and hence the High Commission was unable to take up
his case with the Pakistani government. According to Desai, Ismail was
sentenced to a five-year term in October 2011. His sentence should have
finished in October 2016. “The reply also put on record that there is no time
limit for confirming nationality after the High Commission gets consular
access. In today’s digital world, verifying nationality of an individual must
not take more than three months. There has to be some deadline for this task
and the deadline can be three months, not three years,” Desai told The Indian
Express, saying only “insensitivity” on the part of the government could
explain such delays.
Meanwhile,
Kamabai has begun making her own efforts to bring her husband back. With the
help of Fazalla Sama, president of Shri Manav Seva Panchham Vistar Vikas
Navjivan Trust, an NGO working for the welfare of people of western Kutch, the
unlettered Kamabai wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 23, 2017,
days after getting information about her husband.
“Recently,
one Indian national, Mamada Rafiq Suleman (Jat) of nearby village was released
on 12/10/2017 from Karachi Central Jail. He was in Central Jail in Karachi for
more than last three years. On arrival (in Kutch), he told us that he had seen
(my husband) Sama Ishmail Alimaamad in Karachi Central Jail,” the letter
records.
The Prime Minister’s
Office (PMO) sent the letter to the MHA, which in turn sent an office
memorandum to Joint Secretary (Passport Seva project and Chief Passport
Officer) in the Ministry of External Affairs on December 1, requesting him to
take necessary action and send a “suitable reply to the petitioner urgently.”
On December
6, Khavda police station in Kutch recorded Kamabai’s statement on her missing
husband. “We have recorded her statement and sent the report to higher officers
as ordered by them,” says Khavda Police Inspector P M Chaudhary. A resident of
Juna village in Bhuj taluka, Rafiq Jat told The Indian Express that he
travelled to Karachi by train on December 14, 2008 on a month-long visa to meet
his paternal family. But he was arrested by Pakistani authorities for violation
of his visa conditions, when he travelled to Badin town in Sindh province, for
which he did not have a visa. He was sentenced on January 5, 2012.
“Since I had
already spent three years in jail before I was held guilty, I needed to serve
five more years. Three days after my sentencing, I was lodged in Central Jail
in Hyderabad. It was there that I met Ismail and one Hanif Hingoraja, a
resident of Mota Bandara village of Bhuj taluk. Ismail told me that he was
convicted for illegally entering Pakistan and espionage, and was sentenced to
five years imprisonment in October 2011. The three of us shared a prison cell
for 10 months in the Hyderabad jail,” says Jat.
It was
Hingoraja, also arrested for allegedly crossing the border illegally, who
informed Fazalla Sama, president of the NGO, after his release in 2013 that Jat
was serving a prison term in Pakistan. The social worker then wrote to the
governments of India and Pakistan. “It was Jat who told me that Ismail was also
in a Pakistan jail. I shared the news with Kamabai, and we are hopeful that the
government will ensure Ismail’s repatriation, as his prison sentence got over
around a year ago,” says Fazalla.
“About 10
months after my sentencing, I was transferred to Landhi jail in Karachi. Ismail
was also transferred to Landhi jail from Hyderabad in 2014, and we were lodged
together in a cell for around a month. But after some weeks, Ismail requested a
transfer back to Hyderabad jail as he was not keeping well in Landhi jail,”
says Jat.
While India
and Pakistan have set up the Joint Judicial Committee on Prisoners, the panel
has not met since 2013. “This committee, set up in 2008 and comprising judges
from higher judiciary of both the countries, used to meet prisoners of India
lodged in Pakistan and Pakistani prisoners in India every six months. The
committee used to seek early repatriation of those prisoners who had completed
their sentences. Through that mechanism, prisoners had at least one window to
represent their case directly. But the committee hasn’t met since 2013. Both
the governments should revive this committee at the earliest,” says Desai.
When Ismail
went missing, his eldest son, Attaulla, was 20 years old, while Altaf, the
youngest, was barely a year old. It fell upon Kamabai and Ataulla to provide
for the family. “After he went missing, we had to pick up the pieces and start
afresh. With the help of relatives, we managed to get by somehow,” says
Kamabai.
The family
owns one-hectare land. But agriculture is mainly rain-fed and the soil being
sandy in the arid district, yields are low. While Kamabai somehow managed to
get their two daughters, Asitabai and Sharifabai, married off and also found a
match for Ataulla, matters have not eased. “There are simply too many mouths to
feed. It is difficult,” says Kamabai, adding that her family largely depends on
ration supplied by the government at subsidised rates to below-the-poverty-line
families like hers.
Besides
farming, Attaula doubles up as a truck cleaner. His younger brother, Qayum,
works as a labourer. Raziya helps her mother stitch quilts. Dilthar, 17, has no
work, nor does he attend school. Aslam and Jariyat are studying in Class VII,
while Altaf is in Class I. Kamabai says
she gets Rs 100 per quilt, that she and her daughter take two days to stitch.
When Ismail went missing, the family was giving finishing touches to a two-room
house. They have added one room since then, while a traditional hut made of hay
serves as the kitchen. They have only one cow. “I just pray to Allah that my
husband returns soon. Without him, it will be very difficult to settle these
children. I have faith in the Almighty… my husband will come home soon,” says
Kamabai.
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