In Pak jail for 32 yrs, man could get freedom after VK Singh tweets
BARMER: Like many other married woman in Rajasthan’s Barmer district, Laxmi Singh religiously dabs vermillion on her head every morning and prays for her husband’s safety. But there’s one crucial difference: Her husband Bhagu Singh has been languishing in a Pakistani jail for three decades.
Laxmi was 18 when her husband strayed across the frontier and was captured in 1985. He was a cattle grazer in Gohad Ka Tala, a village close to the India-Pakistan border, and the frontier wasn’t fenced then. He’s been in jail in the neighbouring country ever since. The issue came to light during the border fencing in 1991 when activist Bhuvensh Jain conducted a survey and found that 10 people from Barmer and Jaisalmer were lodged in Pakistani jails.
In this time, Laxmi has raised three children, and has knocked the doors of many politicians, government officials and social activists and written numerous letters – all to no avail. But for the first time in years, she has a ray of hope, thanks to a local journalist who tweeted to junior external affairs minister VK Singh. Singh responded to journalist Premdan Detha’s tweet and sought details for the Indian high commission to take up the case. Detha said he has already sent the details to Singh. “Everybody giving assurances that someday my husband will return…I spent my life with these hopes,” Laxmi said.
She is cautious in her optimism because her hopes have been belied in the past. In 2010, the release of some prisoners from Pakistani jails buoyed the family, but Bhagu’s name never made it to the list. The next year, the family received a letter from him informing them that he was lodged in the Central Jail in Pakistan’s Hyderabad. There has been no communication since. “When we heard from him again in 2011, we were relieved to know that he was fine,” she said.
“Hope helped me live for 30 years. Now again, I’m daring to hope. If such a big leader has said so, he will definitely try…the rest is in god’s hands.”