Four Miles to Freedom (20 page)

On 9 August 1974, Richard Nixon, who had ignored the killing in East Pakistan in order to facilitate détente with China, resigned as president of the United States before he could be impeached for the Watergate scandal. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, an early inmate of the prison at Lyallpur, served as prime minister of Bangladesh until he was assassinated in a military coup on 24 January 1975. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whose unilateral initiative resulted in the exchange of prisoners captured on the western front, was deposed in a military coup and executed on 4 April 1979. Indira Gandhi was assassinated on 31 October 1984.

The peace established between India and Pakistan by the Simla Agreement has held, so far. Though tensions have mounted on a number of occasions, and battles were fought on the Line of Control at Kargil in 1999, the two countries have not gone to war for the last forty years.

Timeline

Bangladesh War of Independence and Indo-Pakistan War 1971

Bibliography

Published Sources

Ahamed, Syeed, The Curious Case of 195 War Criminals,
The Forum
, May 2010 (
http://www.thedailystar.net/forum/2010/may/curious.htm
)

A Handbook for Travellers in India, Burma and Ceylon
, 13
^th
edition (John Murray 1929)

Bass, Gary J.,
The Blood Telegram, Nixon, Kissinger, and a
Forgotten Genocide
(Alfred A. Knopf 2013)

Chowdhary, Lt. Col. S.S.,
I Was a Prisoner of War in Pakistan
(Lancer International 1985)

Jafa, D.S.,
Three Countries One People
(Minerva Press 1999)

Jagan Mohan, P.V.S. and Chopra, Samir,
The Indian−Pakistan
War of 1965
(Manohar 2005)

Khan, Arshad Sami,
Three Presidents and an Aid
(Pentagon Press 2008)

Lal, P.C.,
My Years with the I.A.F
(Lancer, 2
^nd
edition, 2008)

Quasim, Syed Shah Abul, ‘Excerpts: Life in Camp 29,'
Life Story of an Ex-Soldier
, self-published (
http://archives.dawn.com/weekly/booksarchive/030427/books3.htm

Sinhji, Harish, ‘The Escape Story,' from P.C. Lal,
My Years with the I.A.F
. pp. 346−69

Talbot, Ian,
Pakistan, a New History
(Amaryllis 2012)

Times of India
1972

Unpublished Sources

Athale, Anil,
Memories of a Prisoner of War
, 6 December 2010,
http://uswww.rediff.com

Bhargava, Jawahar Lal,
How I Got Captured
and
POW Saga
Parts I−VIII
,
http:marutfans,wordpress.com

Grewal, M.S.,
Gary 1971

Parulkar, Dilip, letters to Inder Khanna: 14 April 1963, 28 April and 10 October 1964, undated (from the UK), 10 October 1965, 9 January 1972, 7 March 1972

Singh H.K.,
Story of a Hunter Pilot- 71 War

Singh, Tejwant,
Visit to Historical Gurdwara Punja Sahib at
Hasan Abdal, In the Aftermath of the Escape, Other Experiences
in the POW Camp Rawalpindi, Other Experiences in the POW
camp Lyallpur

Interviews

Bhargava, Jawahar Lal

Coelho, Bernard Anthony

Grewal, Malvinder Singh

Jafa, Dhirendra Singh

Kuruvilla, Kariyadil Cheriyan

Parulkar, Dilip

Pethia, Aditya Vikram

Singh, Tejwant

Sinjhi, Kaveri

Acknowledgements

My first thanks must be to my husband, Air Commodore Manbir Singh Vr.C,VM (retired) who suggested that I write this story and provided his support and technical knowledge all along the way.

Without Dilip Parulkar, there would be no story. I thank him for his good humour in answering many questions, digging up material, suggesting books to read, and introducing me to other POWs.

I have never met Harish Sinhji, who died in 2004, but I have him to thank for some of the most vivid details of the night of the escape and the capture the next morning. He was the first of the POWs to write about his experience. Fortunately his account was published as an appendix to the memoir of Air Chief P.C. Lal in 1986.

Soon after I began this project I asked Grewal, Dilip's partner, to record his memories of capture and escape. The other POWs called him Gary, so he labelled his account
Gary 1971
. That document has been valuable in itself and has been the starting point for many questions.

Eventually I was able to get in touch with Pethia, Jafa, Kuruvilla, Coelho, Bhargava, Tejwant Singh, and Kaveri and Vikram Sinhji. Without exception, each person has cooperated in this project by answering questions and, in some cases, offering new insights.

I thank Jawahar Lal Bhargava and Tejwant Singh for being particularly generous in sharing materials with me. Both men are writers themselves and could have regarded me as an intruder on their territory, but the reaction of each man was the opposite. Bhargava provided me with several of his writings on the web that I had missed and answered many, many questions. Tejwant Singh shared his memories and introduced me to Coelho, Kuruvilla, Pethia and Kaveri Sinhji. As well as suggesting books for me to read, he provided most of the photos and maps for this book.

Thanks also to my agent Kanishka Gupta (The Writer's Side) for recognizing the merits of this book, and to Meru Gokhale and Archana Shankar of Random House India for facilitating its production.

Flight Lieutenant A. Vikram Pethia, prisoner of war, being received by his mother and sister, 8 May 1972, Palam

Aditya Vikram Pethia

Former POWs of the 1971 War on arrival at Lyallpur (now Faisalabad) Jail, end August 1972, watching Janamashthami celeberations by Indian jawans (POWs)

Flight Lieutenant Tejwant Singh presenting an oil painting made by him to the Chairperson of Pakistan Red Cross

Flight Lieutenant M.S. Grewal meeting his next of kin