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Indian Kashmir Singh released after 35 years

Had GoI owned the poor fellow or not yet.
Did he received any medal so far? or financial compensation?
What about his kids? did they received state assistance or free education sort of perks?
 
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Kashmir Singh denies statement on being spy

HOSHIARPUR (PUNJAB): Kashmir Singh, who returned to India recently after spending 35 years in Pakistan jails, on Saturday went back on his statement on Friday that he was a spy.

Singh said that the media had distorted his statement made at a press conference in Chandigarh on Friday on his working for the government in seventies.

At the Meet-the-Press programme in Chandigarh on Friday, he had admitted to having worked as a spy and also blamed government agencies for not having looked after his family after his arrest in Pakistan.

But on Saturday he said his statement was distorted. Singh declined to give any details of his working for the government.

"I did not give the statement of my being a spy," he said.

Answering a question he declined that he was retracting on Friday's statement under pressure. "There was no pressure on me to withdraw the statement," he added.


His childhood friend Gurmit Chand Bhardwaj, a former Joint Director of News in AIR, said in Chandigarh that Singh maintains that he worked for the government.

Bhardwaj also said that Pakistan Human Rights Minister Ansar Burney, who had played a key role in the release of Singh, also rang up and talked to Singh today seeking clarifications on his spy statement.

Singh was stated to have worked for the army and for the Punjab Police as a constable.

Link - Kashmir Singh denies statement on being spy-India-The Times of India

Video - I was not a spy: Kashmir Singh-News-Broadband - Indiatimes.com
 
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Kashmir Singh denies statement on being spy

HOSHIARPUR (PUNJAB): Kashmir Singh, who returned to India recently after spending 35 years in Pakistan jails, on Saturday went back on his statement on Friday that he was a spy.

Singh said that the media had distorted his statement made at a press conference in Chandigarh on Friday on his working for the government in seventies.

At the Meet-the-Press programme in Chandigarh on Friday, he had admitted to having worked as a spy and also blamed government agencies for not having looked after his family after his arrest in Pakistan.

But on Saturday he said his statement was distorted. Singh declined to give any details of his working for the government.

"I did not give the statement of my being a spy," he said.

Answering a question he declined that he was retracting on Friday's statement under pressure. "There was no pressure on me to withdraw the statement," he added.


His childhood friend Gurmit Chand Bhardwaj, a former Joint Director of News in AIR, said in Chandigarh that Singh maintains that he worked for the government.

Bhardwaj also said that Pakistan Human Rights Minister Ansar Burney, who had played a key role in the release of Singh, also rang up and talked to Singh today seeking clarifications on his spy statement.

Singh was stated to have worked for the army and for the Punjab Police as a constable.

Link - Kashmir Singh denies statement on being spy-India-The Times of India

Video - I was not a spy: Kashmir Singh-News-Broadband - Indiatimes.com


He did admit even getting Rs400 per spying activity from Indian government.

:) Goodperson One can clearly see after so much hilighting of his accepting that he was a Spy and his acceptance also proved Indian stance that it was not involved in Spying in Pakistan, as wrong.
The pressure element on Kashmir Singh for refuting his earlier statment is 99% there.

Isnt that he is now under the Indian Government scanner. :)
 
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I just posted the latest update. He may get more compensation and sympathy if he proves he was a spy and his family was neglected. Which I do not see as his intent he was infact sentenced to death in Pakistan for spying, Would'nt pakistan extracted confession from him if he was a spy?
Media distorts the news.


Where did you get the figure of Rs4 lakh per spying activity ? would'nt he or his family be rich? I hear his wife was a maid servent. Please post the link, you have better access as a Journalist
 
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I just posted the latest update. He may get more compensation and sympathy if he proves he was a spy and his family was neglected. Which I do not see as his intent he was infact sentenced to death in Pakistan for spying, Would'nt pakistan extracted confession from him if he was a spy?
Media distorts the news.

I dont think so the Indian Government would compansated Kashmir Singh even if assured it of his services to the nation as the GoI does know he was working for them as spy. Even despite his arrest for the last 35 years Indian government did not bother to pursue his case.
His statment accepting the spying charges infact damaged the credibility and position of India as compared to Pakistan. Hence suddnly the Indian government came into action and forced him to retreate his earlier statment.

Indeed Goody the media does distort things BUT the Indian Media did clearly ask him Open Questions like Did he realy work for India as spy???

Now tell me what answer to this can be distorted? The news of Kashmir Singh Confession was aired and Published by Indian Media and that too from the Press Conference during which he was asked open questions.



Where did you get the figure of Rs4 lakh per spying activity ? would'nt he or his family be rich? I hear his wife was a maid servent. Please post the link, you have better access as a Journalist

My appology Goody as it was Rs400 and not 4 lakh.
 
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Media would go great lengths for distorting the news he has gained much sympathy and Publicity in India, People believe he was wrongly convicted in Pakistan.
Why would he claim to be spy ? Wouldn't he spoil the chance of remaining Indian in Pakistani jails which even he claims to know ?

Any way I just posted media link which was contradictory to previously aired news. Everyone can have their opinion.
 
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Media would go great lengths for distorting the news he has gained much sympathy and Publicity in India, People believe he was wrongly convicted in Pakistan.
Why would he claim to be spy ? Wouldn't he spoil the chance of remaining Indian in Pakistani jails which even he claims to know ?
Any way I just posted media link which was contradictory to previously aired news. Everyone can have their opinion.

The fact is he was a spy and he confessed to it, not to Pakistani authorities but in front of the Indian media. I think as soon as the Indian government heard that he had confessed they probably threatened him to change his statement.
The Indian government probably didnot expect him to come back, so they never paid his family because they knew if he came back, it would be a major embarrassment for the Indian government. I bet you the family of the other Indian spies are given the same promise but those promises are never fulfilled.
 
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India's families still hoping for answers

As an Indian man is pardoned after spending 35 years languishing forgotten in a Pakistan prison, other families continue to look for loved ones who went missing during the India-Pakistan war. The BBC's Chris Morris in Delhi meets one woman who has been waiting for news of her husband since 1971.

She pulls the newspaper carefully out of a folder.

It is slightly crumpled, fraying at the edges and the paper is turning a little yellow.

It is a copy of the Sunday Pakistan Observer, dated 5 December 1971.

Under the headline "Pakistan Air Force Bags 46 Indian planes", it states the name of one of the pilots captured alive: Flight Lieutenant Tambay.

"That's my husband," she says.

Next out of the folder comes a copy of a page from an old edition of Time magazine.

A photograph captures an Indian prisoner of war staring out through the bars of his cell and, in the background, the partly obscured face of another man.

"That's him," she says. "I'm convinced of it. So where is he now? And if he's dead, where's his body? Has anyone seen one?"


Thirty-six year search

These are the questions which go through Damayanti Tambay's mind every day.

She and her husband, Vijay, had been married for little more than a year when his Indian air force plane was shot down over Pakistan during the 1971 war between the two countries.

For more than 36 years she has been looking for him and her folder has slowly become thicker.

There are elusive hints in books and old letters, and the recollection of one former prisoner who remembers a man using a stone to scratch the name Tambay on a wall.


'Death row' pardon

"Every so often," she says, "I tell myself I'm going to destroy all these documents and not feel guilty that I haven't done enough. And then something like this case comes up."

She turns towards a television screen in the corner of the room which is showing live pictures from the India-Pakistan border.

A man named Kashmir Singh, lost on death row in Pakistan for more than three decades, has just been reunited with a family he thought he would never see again.

"This only confirms what we've been saying," Damayanti murmurs. "Other people could be there, just like him."

More than 50 families are still looking for army and air force officers missing since the 1971 war, when India helped Bangladesh win its independence from Pakistan.


Lack of support

So how much help have the families had over the years from the Indian government?

"Very little, very late is the best way to describe it," she says.

We're sitting in her flat on the leafy campus of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, where she is the sports director.

"I wish we were more like the Americans," she smiles.

It is an obvious comparison: the unceasing efforts of the US military to follow up any lead, however small, in the search for soldiers missing in action after the Vietnam War.

Why does the Indian system not appear to care to the same extent?

Is it because this is a place which has to think in larger numbers, a place which is so big that the individual, almost by accident, counts for rather less?

Or is it part of society, in a place where the welfare of the Indian family or the community or the caste generally takes precedence over the welfare of the Indian individual?

Perhaps it is a bit of both.


Vast scale of India

"My experience," Damayanti says, "is very typical of the way we function here, especially in government."

"You have to start with the conviction that you're dealing with human beings, that this isn't just another file sitting on the table."

But the vast scale of everything that happens in India can make that difficult.

When the government writes off the debts of small farmers in its pre-election budget, it covers 40 million people. A bus crash in which 20 die barely merits a mention in the local press.

How can the system possibly have time to worry about a long-lost individual, who may well be dead?

Successive governments have said they do care about the missing, but they have never followed through with any persistence.

Another request has recently been forwarded to the Pakistani authorities to search for the missing, to look again into the darker corners of their prison system.


Need for 'closure'

Miracles can happen, but the families are not expecting much.

For most of them, it is about lack of finality, about the need for what the Americans call "closure".

Not knowing always leaves a nagging doubt. And there is a belief in fate.

"If you're destined to be alive, you're alive," Damayanti says calmly, smoothing down the hem of her purple sari. "And we haven't had the kind of support we deserve in trying to find out the truth."

"But for my husband's sake, this is the least I can do, and the most I can do, as long as I'm still here."

A dark-feathered humming bird has flown in through an open door from the balcony. Its wings beat loudly and insistently.

Damayanti Tambay pauses for a moment and glances from the television to the small creature and back.

We open a window. And the bird flies free.

BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | India's families still hoping for answers
 
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I just posted the latest update. He may get more compensation and sympathy if he proves he was a spy and his family was neglected. Which I do not see as his intent he was infact sentenced to death in Pakistan for spying, Would'nt pakistan extracted confession from him if he was a spy?
Media distorts the news.
So you are dis-owning him as one of your own. :P
I wish all Indian spies read this thread.

I hope your government will grant penssion and similar perks to every prisinor releasing from Pakistani prisons.

Pension to Kashmir Singh and his wife
Chandigarh (PTI): Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Friday announced a pension of Rs 5,000 per month each to Kashmir Singh and wife Parmajit Kaur in recognition of his "outstanding services" towards the nation.

Singh, who was convicted on the charges of espionage and was sentenced to death in Pakistan, had been released recently after he was pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf following 35 years of imprisonment.

Calling him a "national hero", Badal also promised to grant government job to one eligible dependent of Kashmir Singh, who has a physically-challenged son.

To fulfill his promise, Badal suggested that Punjab government would make an exception for Kashmir Singh to exempt him from the government rules in this regard.

The Chief Minister also announced to bear the entire expenditure for the construction of a house for Kashmir Singh and his family over a plot donated by his media advisor in Mahilpur.

The chief minister and his wife also honoured the couple with a shawl and a garland on the occasion and assured full support and cooperation to them on behalf of the Punjab government.
 
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Indian Prisoner Released by Pakistan Admits to Spying

News reports in India say a man who spent 35 years in Pakistani prisons on spying charges before his release this week has admitted that he was a secret agent.

The Press Trust of India news agency Friday quotes Kashmir Singh as saying that he did his duty to serve India as a spy in Pakistan. But, speaking in the northern city of Chandigarh, the capital of India's Punjab state, Singh criticized successive Indian governments, saying they did not take care of his family following his arrest in 1973.

The news agency says Singh declined to name which Indian government agency employed him, or how he entered Pakistan. But it says he also criticized the government for failing to help other Indian prisoners in various Pakistani jails.

Singh, who is in his 60s, returned to India Tuesday, a day after Pakistani authorities freed him on humanitarian grounds.

Singh was convicted of spying and sentenced to death by a military court after his 1973 arrest. Pakistani authorities later stayed his execution, and his case languished.

Pakistani Minister for Human Rights Ansar Burney played a key role in his release.

Singh's release follows a gradual improvement in ties between India and Pakistan since the South Asian rivals launched a peace process in 2004.

Since then, the two neighbors have restored transportation links and sporting and cultural contacts. India and Pakistan also have held a series of prisoner exchanges in recent years.

I have a questions about those spies, do they have same rights as prisnor of war?
 
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Indian's Confession Disconcerts Pakistan
Freed Indian Claims He Really Was a Spy in Embarrassment to Pakistan

"I am shocked to hear these statements," said Pakistan's Minister for Human Rights Ansar Burney, the official who worked for Singh's release.

"It will surely make it difficult for Indian prisoners in Pakistan and Pakistani prisoners in India," he told CNN-IBN

On Saturday, Singh was trying to undo the damage of his loose talk, telling the private Indian news channel CNN-IBN that his comments were misinterpreted and he had not actually been a spy. But his credibility was in doubt.
ABC News: Indian's Confession Disconcerts Pakistan


A fairly stupid move of bravado by Mr. Singh...its going to bite in the *** all the Indian and Pakistanis held in each others jails.
 
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A fairly stupid move of bravado by Mr. Singh...its going to bite in the *** all the Indian and Pakistanis held in each others jails.


Life is miserable for our prisoners in Indian jails what else they can bear? And in Pakistan some of our officials are proactive in releasing the criminals and it looks like the Government officials are having a lot of soft corners for Indians criminals and spies. It is unfortunate and sad that they don’t feel for our people and carrying just foreign agenda.

What about our Countryman “Khalid” who was martyred by the butcher Indian intelligence agencies? Who will pay the price for his blood?
 
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On one hand it is good for us, wth is he gonna do anyways of 35 years old intel. But that will teach our NGOs and Human rights people a lesson that not everyone is innocent. He should have been hanged but that fine that they send him hes good for nothing now. All hes gonna do is eat some FUNDs of his Intelligence Agency and keep talking and crying.

Hopefully we will learn a lesson.
 
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Bhago and Kashmir Singh, two inmates with different anecdotes



ISLAMABAD, Mar 9 (APP): Bhago Begum - pale, frail with
deeply wrinkled face - had unveiled on arrival in Pakistan
heart-rending stories of physical and mental torture and inhuman
behaviour meted out to her during her long incarceration in the
jail of neighbouring country, India.
Bhago Begum, the Pakistani citizen, who was freed last year
from an Indian jail, narrated the conditions in which Pakistani
prisoners were kept in jails as 'dreadful'.
She termed the authorities of Indian jails 'heartless' as
the Pakistani prisoners remain a target of routine 'physical
abuse' and verbal humiliation on the hands of Indian officials.
Like Bhago Begum, there are many other Pakistani nationals
who continue to suffer at the hands of Indian authorities in
draconian Indian jails without trial.

Though the Indian media has frequently reflected the suffering
of Pakistani prisoners, admitted to hospitals in serious conditions,
after being picked by the Indian intelligence under espionage charges
that were never proved in courts, yet the Indian officials are reluctant
to pay heed to such charges.
On the other side of the border, an Indian national Kashmir
Singh was pardoned by President Musharraf and was released from
Pakistani jail last week.
On his way home from Wagah Border, Singh carried memories of
humane treatment in Pakistan jails despite being a spy -- a fact
he admitted as soon as he returned to India after 35-year
imprisonment.
The grey-haired Singh looked physically fit and cheerful
after his release, in sharp contrast to the miserable condition of
Pakistani prisoners languishing in Indian jails without catching
any attention from the human rights activists.
"I was a spy," Singh told journalists in India Friday,
lamenting that the Indian government did nothing for his family
during her long stay in Pakistan jail.

Caught red-handed in the garrison city of Rawalpindi in
1973, he was quoted by Press Trust of India as saying, "I was
paid rupees 400 as salary per duty and I went (to Pakistan) to
serve my country."
Hale and hearty, Singh walked out to freedom from Kot
Lakhpat Jail in Lahore earlier last week while flanked by
caretaker Human Rights Minister Ansar Burney, whose intercession
led to his release by Pakistan on humanitarian grounds.
Eyes blinking with gratitude for a nation that never ceased
to be friendly and hospitable, Singh crossed the Wagah border the
next day to rejoin his waiting wife and other family members.
Talking to media, Singh termed his release a "humanitarian
gift from President Pervez Musharraf."
He said he had never ever been subjected to torture during
his entire period in imprisonment. One of his chum appearing on a
private TV channel said he had always been a thin figure but
congenial jail environment in Pakistan enabled him to gain weight.

The internationally publicized event and the jubilation in
Singh's home village raised questions about the plight of the
Pakistani prisoners languishing in Indian jails.
The comparison of his figure and complexion with that of
Bhago Begum speaks volumes about the treatment meted out to
Pakistani prisoners in India.

As per reports, as many as 48 Pakistani prisoners
are languishing in jails across Indian Punjab, even after
completing their respective prison terms.
Many of the prisoners have not even been granted consular
access, which is mandatory under international conventions that
both Pakistan and India are signatory to.


[/B]The Asian Age reported a 60-year-old Pakistani Mukhtar Ahmad
of Kasur, currently in Amritsar's high-security central jail, has
spent 17 years in prisons across India. He has spent nine years
more than his sentence and still there is no sign of his
repatriation.
Akbar Ali of Lahore, is in Amritsar Jail without any hope of
his release. No one even ponders the prospecst of his return to
Pakistan because the period of his extra stay is "barely 16
months" since completing sentence in November 2006.
The jail officials told that there were "helpless" and
cannot release the unfortunate 48 because they would be "guilty"
of violating the Foreigners Act the minute they were permitted to
step a foot out of the jail premises.
"We have no ulterior interest in retaining these people. But
we can only follow the instructions from Delhi," said Superintendent
S.P. Singh.[/b]

And past experience shows that "Delhi" could well remain
silent for years.
The apparent lethargy on the part of Indian bureaucracy in
processing the cases of the 48 Pakistanis in Amritsar Jail is
surprising.
Ranjan Lakhanpal, a Chandigarh-based lawyer and civil
liberties activist, fought for three years for release of Fida
Hussain and five other Pakistanis who had languished in Indian
jails years beyond their sentences.
Lakhanpal says in 1993, the High Court at Chandigarh adopted
a humanitarian approach and ordered that the prisoners be sent
home on the Samjhauta Express with due compensation.
"Today, Fida Hussain and his compatriots are safe, happy and
with their loved ones," the lawyer said the current bureaucratic
position on prisoners is unacceptable under humanitarian law.
"How can we not be concerned about their right to liberty?
Aren't we the ones who are holding them prisoner?" he said. And he
should know after playing a key role in the repatriation of more
than 250 Pakistanis from India, the daily reported.
On the other hand, a jail reformation process is being
pursued in Pakistan and various initiatives are being taken by
the Ministry of Human Rights, an officials told the APP when
contacted.

Efforts are being made to release mentally retarded and aged
prisoners.
The ministry will also pay fines of those jailed for
ordinary crimes to clear the way for their release, the ministry
official said.
Provinces were preparing reports about prisoners who had
completed their sentences and were not freed because of their
inability to pay fine.
The other major initiative is the launch of skill development
programme for female and male prisoners.
The programme is aimed at providing an opportunity to
prisoners that will bring behavioural changes in the jail inmates
by increasing their creative and constructive capacity.
Another significant improvement is that prisoners belonging
to minority groups, will be able to perform their religious rituals
at worship places to be set up in jails.

APP
 
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What else can you expect from Indians? Go ask Kashmiris, every house have a horrific story to tell.
There is no need for any Pakistani to visit India, we should stop immediately all contacts with Indians and boycott those who are dictating us to adopt Indian culture.
Any one, who visits India, is subjected to harassment and bad treatment.
It is impossible for Pakistanis to have social relations with Indians.
They should live on their side and we should guard our sovereignty at all costs.
 
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