After visiting 10 jails in Pakistan, relatives of Indian PoWs have failed to locate their dear ones even as a retired Pakistani Army official claimed on Tuesday that one of the 54 soldiers being searched had been killed in 1971 war.
The 14-member delegation of relatives of the PoWs sought a meeting with President Pervez Musharraf to present all the 'irrefutable evidence' about the presence of their dear ones in Pakistani prisons.
The delegation visited 10 jails over the last 10 days but found none of the PoWs.
"It is still a mystery where these men have gone," said G S Gill, whose brother Wing Commander H S Gill went missing, told reporters.
He presented various documents, including certain letters and some photographs published by Time magazine, to the the media about the presence of Indian PoWs in Pakistan.
He also made a reference to the book written by British journalist Victoria Schefiled on the execution of former prime minister Z A Bhutto. The book contained references about wailing Indian POWs from an adjacent cell in the jail in which he was imprisoned.
Gill said they were also waiting for permission to visit Attok prison, which has not been granted so far.
He, however, thanked the Pakistan government for permitting them to visit about 10 prisons.
Meanwhile, Major (retd) Tanvir Hussain, currently the Parliament Secretary of Defence in Pakistan's National Assembly, met the delegation of relatives and claimed that one of the Indian soldiers presumed to be a PoW had been killed in the 1971 war.
Hussain told Ajit Singh, brother of Capt Giriraj Singh of 5 Assam Rifles, that his brother was killed in a fierce battle at Burre Lal post and was buried with 'all honours'.
Hussain said he knew about the death as he himself took part in the battle at the post.
Giriraj Singh went missing in Chamba sector of Jammu and Kashmir on December 3, 1971 and was presumed to be one of the 54 Indian PoWs in Pakistan.
"It is indeed sad news but at the same time I am relieved that our anxiety about his whereabouts has finally ended. So that extent this visit for me is very useful and successful," Ajit Singh, a native of Hissar in Haryana, said.
Hussain is the son of famous Pakistani gazal singer Mallika Pukhraj.
He recently hit the headlines with a comment in the Assembly that he was associated with the banned Lashkar-e-Tayiba outfit.
He was elected to the Assembly in 2002 on Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party ticket and later defected to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q.
Hussain met Ajit Singh after learning about the visit of the delegation through media reports.
The members of the Indian delegation made an emotional appeal to the Pakistan media and people to help them trace their beloved.
