Four Miles to Freedom (13 page)

The boy seemed to believe him, but the questions continued. When he learned they were hiking to Landi Kotal, he was very concerned. It was much too far to walk, he told them.

‘We like to walk,' said Dilip. But before they had a chance to fend him off, their good Samaritan had flagged down a bus and they were once again settling themselves on its roof, as the boy waved them farewell.

Soon they were in the mountains. From the roof of the bus they had a clear view of lookout posts on the peaks, and further down, cave dwellings cut into the slopes, their entrances covered in cloth. At each cave entrance they could see a huge hound standing guard. Whenever the bus passed near one of these dwellings the hound would bark ferociously. Just as well, they realized, that they were not trekking through the territory at night.

The Simla Conference

In a matter of weeks everything seemed to be falling into place. When Chati returned from his visit to the dentist, he had just the information they needed: ‘Turn left on the Mall Road,' he said, ‘then left on the first major road after that. You follow that road straight into town. It's a long, long way, likely four or five kilometres, but eventually you will see the central bus station. It's a big field stretching out on your right.'

Finally, on 20 June, the rains began. At first they were neither heavy nor long, just enough to cool the air a few degrees. Then, on 24 June, an ICRC aircraft facilitated the exchange of yet another group of sick and wounded prisoners, and picked up more mail. A day or so later, a Red Cross rep arrived at the camp with another batch of letters and parcels.

Since April, when Wahid had provided a radio, the POWs had enjoyed listening to music and the news for days at a time, though there would also be times when either the radio didn't work or their access to it was removed because the whole camp was put in lockdown mode. These episodes were inevitably touched off by bad news about the Pakistani POWs in India. When that happened Wahid-ud-din would march into Cell 5, often with a newspaper rolled up in his hand, and tell them that a prisoner had been shot.

‘Tell me why I shouldn't shoot the lot of you!' he would say, slapping the paper on the table. Then he would stomp out and take the newspaper with him, so they were never sure if he was exaggerating or even making the story up. In any case, it meant no radio, no games, and no meals together. They would spend the rest of the day locked in their cells.

Once they got the radio, the prisoners knew that Wahid-ud-din's stories were true. Some of the 93,000 Pakistani prisoners in India were getting fed up of sleeping in tents, eating a mostly vegetarian diet, and wondering if they'd ever see home again. There were occasional riots and attempted breakouts, shots were fired, and POWs died. Still, the broadcasts by All India Radio from at least some of the camps continued to be aired, and now our friends in Pindi were able to listen for themselves as a Pakistani POW took the microphone, sent greetings to his family and friends and told them not to worry. On one of these broadcasts a fellow mentioned that at his camp they watched Hindi movies weekly.

At the June meeting with the Red Cross rep, the POWs mentioned movies being shown to POWs in India. They were thinking in terms of simultaneous reciprocity, but were aware that showing movies for only ten prisoners was unlikely to happen. The rep had a better idea. ‘Why don't you ask for a television set?' he suggested.

They asked Wahid that very day, without much hope of success. To their surprise he promised them that if they were right—if the Pakistani POWs were actually watching movies in their camps—he would have a TV set installed immediately.

As usual, the prisoners' main interest in the visit from the Red Cross was the arrival of mail. In June Dilip received another parcel from his sister. In it were two shirts and one pair of trousers—just the civvies they needed for the escape. He quickly stuffed them back in the Red Cross box and tucked it under his charpoy. For the escape Dilip would wear his green salwar kameez. Grewal would wear the beige terylene shirt over his salwar. As for shoes, they would both have to wear the prison issue cotton running shoes. There was no way around that.

The next day a television set was installed in Wahid-ud-din's office. That evening the volleyball game was cancelled as all ten POWs carried their chairs into the office and sat glued to the tube. Some of them had never watched TV before. They soon discovered that television programming in Pakistan was not nearly as much fun as a good Hindi movie, but the news broadcasts did not disappoint them. They were always hungry for news. And they were delighted to find that the evening news was read by a very beautiful woman called Nilopher Malik. After a few evenings of TV, Dilip and some of the others went back to playing volleyball, but whenever Nilopher Malik came on the air someone called Dilip and he always came running.

Shortly after the prisoners got their TV, President Bhutto arrived in India for peace talks with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Before leaving Pakistan Bhutto had declared that the return of POWs and the vacation of occupied territories were at the top of his agenda. (At the time of the ceasefire Indian troops occupied approximately 5000 square miles of Pakistani territory in Sind and Punjab.) However, Indira Gandhi's priorities differed. She wanted a comprehensive settlement of long-standing disputes over Kashmir. A prisoner exchange was not on her agenda at all.

Since the Pakistani Army had surrendered to a coalition of troops representing India and Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujib and his government would have to approve any exchange of prisoners, and that matter was seriously complicated by the war crimes issue. Before the Simla meeting Bangladesh had announced a plan to prosecute over 1000 military POWs. India had agreed to hand over all military prisoners against whom Bangladesh presented ‘prima facie' cases. So, even though all 93,000 Pakistani POWs had been escorted out of Bangladesh to the relative safety of camps in India, it was not India alone that controlled their fate. It is difficult to believe that Bhutto did not understand that the whole issue of a prisoner exchange was off the table at Simla. He may have wanted a prisoner exchange more than anything, but it was not going to happen.

All the IAF prisoners knew, of course, came from a few news broadcasts, and Bhutto's statements had raised their expectations. They had no access to the longer commentaries and speculations in newspapers. They were hopeful for the obvious trade-off: peace in Kashmir (where India's position had been disputed by Pakistan since 1947) in return for the prisoner exchange Bhutto said was his top priority. It seemed entirely logical. If it happened, the POWs would benefit in two ways. First they would go home. Second, they might never have to fight another war. And for Grewal, there would be another bonus. He wouldn't have to risk his life in an escape attempt. The whole escapade would have become unnecessary.

Talks between the two leaders began at Simla on 28 June. Every evening the prisoners filed into Wahid-ud-din's office to watch the evening news. Nothing was as simple or straightforward as they had hoped. Pakistan was insisting on getting back its prisoners and occupied territories before even beginning to discuss Kashmir. On 1 July, a day before the end of the conference, Gandhi and Bhutto met briefly but couldn't get past their stalemate. It seemed the conference was doomed to failure.

By 2 July the prisoners had pretty well given up hope for the Simla conference. And they had another problem on their hands. That morning Wahid-ud-din stormed into Cell 5 while they were still sitting around having breakfast. He slammed a copy of
The Dawn
on the table. ‘Another Pakistani prisoner shot dead,' he declared. ‘You people don't know how to govern! I could say I shot you since you were all trying to escape.'

His outburst was met by a stunned silence. They'd heard all this before, but not for a while. Was it possible, they wondered, that Wahid-ud-din had somehow gotten wind of the escape preparations? Or was he all steamed up, as usual, because he had a brother-in-law and a number of friends among the POWs in India? After his speech he strode out of the room with the newspaper under his arm, leaving the prisoners to wait for a lockdown, or even worse—much worse—a search of their cells. If Cell 5 were searched they would be doomed for sure: the knapsacks, the rope, the civvies, the maps—there was no way they could explain them.

But there was no lockdown that day and after a few hours of the normal routine, they realized their fears had been groundless. On the evening of 2 July they watched the TV news, as usual. The Simla conference was still going on. That evening Bhutto and Gandhi were meeting privately in the hope of salvaging five days of negotiations, not to mention weeks of preparation.

On 3 July 1972 Zulfikar Ali Bhutto flew back to Lahore. At the airport he was greeted by thousands of supporters. A tall, handsome man and a charismatic speaker, Bhutto was Pakistan's first civilian leader after fourteen years of military rule. In the controversial 1970 elections, the Pakistan People's Party, which he had founded, won 72 per cent of the votes in West Pakistan. After losing the war and half the country, and all his credibility, President Yahya Khan had been forced to cede power to Bhutto.

That evening the POWs sat in Wahid-ud-din's office watching Bhutto's triumphant return on the evening newscast. It was clear that six months into his presidency, the man was still very popular. He knew just what to say. He talked about losing the war but winning the peace. Give peace a chance, he said. And the people cheered every sentence. At the end of his speech, when he flung his jacket into the crowd, men scrambled for it, tearing it to pieces.

The Simla Agreement, signed very late on the night of 2 July 1972, after intense one-on-one negotiations between the two leaders, did, in fact, become the basis of peace between the two countries for the next forty years. In exchange for the return of 5000 square miles of occupied territory in West Pakistan, Bhutto had agreed to respect the line of control in Kashmir and ‘to refrain from threat or use of force in violation of this line'. Indira Gandhi had achieved her goal. India would continue to govern the majority of Kashmir. Gradually, over the years she expected that the line of control would be recognized as an international border. And as far as India was concerned Gandhi had ceded very little. Retaining the territories in Pakistan that had been occupied as result of the 1971 war had never been her intention.

That evening the prisoners waited to hear something about a prisoner exchange or a reference to negotiations beginning on such an exchange but there was nothing. The next morning Wahid-ud-din came in, his paper tucked under his arm as usual, but this time he was happy, happier than the prisoners had ever seen him. He read them the headline: ‘India Returns Territory'. The prisoners asked him to leave the newspaper for them that day and he did. Then, growing bolder, someone said they really should have access to
The Dawn
every day and in his buoyant mood Wahid-ud-din agreed.

Thus the prisoners were able to follow the news closely as the details of the Simla Agreement emerged, but they found nothing encouraging at all. On 12 July Indira Gandhi held her first press conference after signing the pact. When questioned about Indian POWs, she made it clear that there would be no general exchange of prisoners until a firm peace was assured. Since there had been no firm peace between India and Pakistan for twenty-five years, the POWs did not find this news reassuring. It was time to start digging.

The Wall

By the time the digging began, the escape team numbered three. Harish Sinhji's enthusiasm finally overcame Dilip's hesitation to take him along. For weeks Sinhji used all the ammunition he could muster to persuade his comrades that he was a good candidate. Later he confessed, ‘I bluffed and said I had come first in the jungle and snow survival course.' But Harry's size and strength wasn't the only issue. The son of a princely family from Mysore, he had always attended English-language schools. Consequently his Hindi was very poor and he spoke no Punjabi at all.

On the other hand, by July the escape had become a group enterprise. The group had decided that only bachelors could go—it was too risky for men with families—and Sinhji qualified on that score. But in the end, it was Harry's persistence that won him a place on the team. He obviously wanted to be part of the escape team so badly that Dilip felt it would be undemocratic not to give him his wish. Yes, he was neither tall nor strong and might slow them down, but he was a fearless fellow and very good-natured. At one point during their sojourn in Pindi Harry received a letter from a woman he had met at a wedding and fallen in love with (as he tended to do). Because the letter was written in Hindi he needed someone to translate it, and that, of course, led to a great deal of teasing, but he had taken it in his usual good form.

Because Harry's Hindi was so atrocious, it was agreed that he would have to keep his mouth shut during the escape. If they were stopped and questioned he would say he was an Anglo-Pakistani from Hyderabad (Pakistan), and a civilian friend of the two PAF airmen. For the escape he would have to wear his beige prison pants and the blue-green shirt from the parcel sent by Dilip's sister. Grewal would wear the other shirt, the beige one, over his salwar. Dilip, of course, would wear the green salwar kurta he'd been wearing every evening.

The next task was to have Sinhji move into the escape room. For three or four nights, Grewal, Chati, Dilip and Harry played bridge after dinner, begging the guards to let Harry linger just a little longer to finish a rubber. Then they suggested that Harry simply move in, and they could play as long as they liked without troubling the guards. Once again the trick worked. It was simple enough for Harish to move his charpoy and few belongings into Cell 5. However, keeping up the pretence of playing bridge night after night wasn't as easy as it sounds. Grewal had no interest or skill in the game at all, and they all had more important matters to think about.