Click to play videoNew Delhi: Not once in the last 36 years has Jasbir Singh believed that her husband Major Kawaljeet was killed in the 1971 Indo-Pak war. And the last two weeks spent in Pakistan have only strengthened her belief.
Jasbir along with 13 other PoW (Prisoner of War) family members have scanned 10 jails in the last 15 days, gone through bulky records page by page, spoken to prisoners, the media all in the hope of getting some clue about their men who never came home.
And for Jasbir hope came in the form of a young Pakistani boy who claimed to have seen Indian prisoners in a Lahore jail, one of them with his left arm missing.
“The prisoners there told us our men are there,” says Jasbir.
Many would argue that Jasbir is hanging on to a thread that probably doesn't even exist but she says now is not the time to give up.
But her friend Damyanti Tambay who went looking for her husband Flight Lieutenant Vasnat Tambe is not giving up either.
Damyanti last saw her husband in December 1971. In 1972 she read an article in a Pakistani newspaper, which said he had been taken in as a PoW. Damyanti has been looking for him ever since. She says Pakistan has no proof that he was killed in action, so she has no reason to believe that he is dead.
“We won’t give up hope,” says Damyanti.
The Indian government claims that there are 54 Indian PoWs in Pakistani jails but the Pakistan government has always denied it. Jasbir and Damyanti say that though the Pakistan government was very hospitable, they didn't have the sort of access they wanted.
They have come back with many unanswered questions. And while cynics would say they've come back empty handed, but the flicker of hope refuses to die out.
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