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Mr President, will you free my daddy?

Onkar Singh in New Delhi

While the opposition members hotly debated with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his cabinet colleagues about the agenda of the forthcoming summit between India and Pakkistan, one person, besides the newsmen, had a deep interesting in what was going on inside 7 Race Course road.

Thirty year Vipul Purohit had travelled all the way from Agra to meet the opposition leaders before they went for the meeting to request them to take up the issue of release of the 1971 prisoners of war who were still rotting in the Pakistani Jails.

"I was barely three months old when my father Flight Lieutenant Manohar Purohit was called on duty in December 1971. He was then posted in Rajasthan sector. He went on a bombing mission and never returned. We were told that the debris of his plane had landed on the Indian side of the international border and he had bailed out after his plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire. Since then my mother and myelf have been waiting for him," Vipul told rediff.com.

His mother Suman started asking for help from the Indian airforce and the ministry of defence officials.

She even approached the office of the then prime minister Mrs Indira Gandhi and she was told to send pictures of her husband so that a search could be mounted.

"Thirty years have passed since he left home for duty. Each time we started asking for him, the officials would tell us to keep quiet in the interest of those who were in the Pakistani jails. Nothing has happened. Even now we were told not to raise the issue on the eve of the summit. We cannot wait for another twenty years and then raise the matter. I understand that 54 officers of the Indian army and airforce are in various jails of Pakistan. The government should take up this matter with the Pakistani president when he comes here for talks with Vajpayeeji. At least the nation owes this much to these officers," he said.

When former defence minister Mulayam Singh, told the newsmen that he had raised the issue at the all-party meeting, Vipul was more than satisfied.

"I have a reason to feel happy now," he said.

But Vipul is not the only one who is waiting for the release of his beloved father whom he has not even seen.

Like him there are countless other waiting for their beloved ones to be freed from Pakistani jails.

Indo-Pak Summit 2001: The Complete Coverage

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