They ate ‘subzi’ for 14 months as rotis were laced with chemicals
Jai Chand, a daily-wage worker, spent 14 months with Ravi Shankar and Sanjay, two other men from his village, in Pakistan’s Maleer Langhi jail after they were arrested for entering Pakistan water’s illegally on October 15, 2015.
The three from Mohammadpur village in Ghatampur, 50 km from Kanpur, were hired by a contractor in Gujarat to catch fish for him. They were at Jakhua point when the high tide sent their boat with 27 fishermen in Pakistan waters. Pakistan navy fired at them first and they were all arrested.
The first few days were extremely tough for the three men. The cell they were in had all Pakistani inmates, who made them clean the cell three times a day.
They had to even wash their undergarments. “The prison guards supported them as they derived a kind of pleasure when we were harassed,” says Jai Chand.
The rotis (bread) he says he will not forget in his lifetime. Made of maida (fine flour), they were given five in a day.
“We noticed they are given with a powder sprinkled on the surface; it was a chemical we found out later. We were scared and decided not to eat them,” says Jai Chand.
Luckily, the vegetarian inmates were allowed to cook their dishes but they would have to buy the vegetables on their own.“
We needed money so we started making key chains, wood pens and started selling them inside apart from doing menial jobs for prison officials and top of the line inmates; this brought us some extra-money,” he says.
They would use the money to buy vegetables, spices and salt. “For 14 months we survived on subzi we cooked together; at times Pakistan inmates will loot our dish and eat it and we slept hungry.”
The three men came out of the jail in the last week of December last year after the Pakistan gov- ernment decided to release 220 fishermen.
They reached their village in January and since then they have been working in one field or the other.
“A jail is a jail, but survival in a Pakistan jail is the toughest, especially if you are an Indian. The fellow inmates and the prison guards gang up against Indians,” says he.
Jai chand recalls how one of the 27 arrested was forced fed non-vegetarian foods the most cruel way.
“He simply had told an officer about he not being allowed to cook his own vegetarian food. All hell broke loose and he was beaten up mercilessly everyday for about a month.”