Emotionally scarred, Bareilly man recounts horror

Ask him his name and you will get the reply – “Pakistan”.

It has been more than four years since Yashpal, a labourer from Padera village nearly 40 kms from Bareilly district in Uttar Pradesh, was released from Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore (Pakistan) after serving a threeyear term.

Yashpal still visits the outpatient department (OPD) of the mental hospital at Bareilly for treatment. “Kot Lakhpat Jail is a torturing dungeon,” he recalls. It is the same jail where Sarabjit Singh, an Indian national convicted of spying, was attacked and killed in 2013.

“Prisoners, especially Indians, live under traumatic conditions. Majority of them are forced to live in dark cells of 2x2 feet that are light and sound proof,” he said.

“Only those have stayed in these cells know the pain and agony of the prisoners. It strongly affects one’s mind so much so that it takes a few days to return to normal after one is out of the cell. It is next to impossible to come out mentally sound,” said Yashpal.

“Other than dark cells, there are many ways to torture prisoners. These including caning till the time one falls unconscious, feeding water through nose and electric shocks. Besides, lobbying is another major factor that adds to the woes of Indian prisoners,” he said.

“Sarabjit ‘bhaiya’ also succumbed to the same torture,” he said. Sarabjit died on May 2, 2013, the same month Yashpal completed his term.

Yashpal’s father Baburam said the family was not aware of his arrest until a letter from a Pakistani national Mohammed Yusuf Bhatt reached them in 2012.

Baburam, an agricultural labour, said Yashpal had left home in 2008 for Delhi to look for work and support his family financially. “From 2009 onwards, Yashpal stopped responding to our letters leaving us worried,” he said.

Yashpal’s mother Maya said a Bareilly-based NGO Jagar Society, run by Prof Pradeep Kumar, turned out to be the saviour. “Jagar Society pursued the matter with the authorities in Pakistan from where the final date of Yashpal’s release was procured,” said Maya.