At the Chandigarh War Memorial, hundreds of candles shimmered in the memory of those who sacrificed their lives for the country
As the sun went down, the air at the Chandigarh War Memorial filled with strains of patriotic songs and hundreds of candles shimmered in the memory of those who sacrificed their lives for the country. However, there are some names which do not figure here. They are the ones that are neither counted in the dead nor in the living!

The government of India has a list of 54 Missing personnel. many more have gone missing since that list was compiled in the 1970s. The Air Force lists them as Killed in Action and so does the army. Yet how can one ignore the letter that Maj Ashok Suri wrote and which reached his father's house in Delhi in 1975 clearly stating- " Please contact the government or Indian Army about us. there are 20 officers here. ......" After all how did the letter reach his father's house. The Army could easily verify the handwriting in the letter- Is it not important to them that 20 Indian Officers could have been kept back in Pakistan after the 71 war.

My mind for one, baulks at the thought- not because my father may have been one of them but because of the fact that we have chosen to forget them. The men whose last rites were not said, whose ashes were not submerged, who are neither in the count of the living nor in the dead. The Chandigarh memorial does not carry their names and there is no memorial that I know of in India which is dedicated to the Missing as in other countries.

Why has the government still not set up a Missing in Action cell despite promising the realtives of the Missing that it would? Why did the government literally force relatives to go to Pakistan on a tour to 10 civilian jails in Pakistan in June 2007 when it is a known fact that defence personnel are not kept in civilian jails unless they are to be released? Jagseer Singh and Mohd Arif , the 2 Indian soldiers who were captured in Sept 1999 were released from Rawalpindi jail but were brought there only in April 2004. They were reportedly kept in a place they cannot identify as they were in Solitary confinement before they were brought to Rawalpindi jail for consular access. They were charged with border crossing yet Indian authorities were not informed and the Indian Army labelled them as deserters. If this could happen in 1999 anything could have happened in 1971 when Pakistan was smarting at the loss of Bangladesh and the losses in the war.

This is why the relatives led by Mr GS Gill, brother of Wg Cdr HS Gill had requested for a visit by some relatives to Attock fort. We had also requested that we be allowed to meet some retired Army and Air Force Officers who would have been in a position to interview/interrogate prisoners captured in the 71 war. For what we want is a satisfactory resolution. Where we have answers as to what happened to these men. It is not an impossible task. Even if some men were left behind in Pakistan, it was another time and another regime. This is a different era and a committee to research the details and the evidences and which could reach a satisfactory solution in each case would be perhaps the logical conclusion of the case.
The Army, Air Force and the Government needs to set up a working committee with a transparency and a time bound framework. We need to give these men their due by following up each case and reaching a conclusion.