Old friends in India: President’s ex-jail mate gets the cold shoulder
Elahi sought a meeting with Zardari but received no response to his request.
While Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the shrine of Khawaja Moinuddin Chishti received the best of President Asif Ali Zardari’s short visit to New Delhi, one man waited for a chance to meet him – but to no avail.
According to a Times of India report, an old jail mate of the president during his incarceration in 1986-87 wished to request amnesty for Indian prisoners languishing in Pakistan’s jails. Mehboob Elahi was imprisoned in the Karachi Central Jail himself at the time on charges of being an Indian spy, and remained imprisoned for two decades till 1996.
According to Elahi, President Zardari was a close associate during a trying time and he hoped the connection would come to some use in his cause for the release of prisoners.
The former Indian spy recalled that the president had always sympathised with the Indian prisoners, who were treated even worse than the Pakistani prisoners, according to him. The president would give them sweets and soap bars, he added. He would also talk about the oppression of Ziaul Haq’s regime, Elahi said, and had a following within the jail.
Unfortunately, the bond the two shared didn’t appear to be strong enough to bring hundreds of prisoners incarcerated on this side of the border back home.
Elahi sought a meeting with President Zardari via a letter written to the Pakistani High Commission in Delhi, but received no response. He also wrote in the same regard to Indian President Pratibha Patil, and was similarly ignored. He expressed disappointment over what he described as indifference towards the issue by both sides.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 9th, 2012.
According to a Times of India report, an old jail mate of the president during his incarceration in 1986-87 wished to request amnesty for Indian prisoners languishing in Pakistan’s jails. Mehboob Elahi was imprisoned in the Karachi Central Jail himself at the time on charges of being an Indian spy, and remained imprisoned for two decades till 1996.
According to Elahi, President Zardari was a close associate during a trying time and he hoped the connection would come to some use in his cause for the release of prisoners.
The former Indian spy recalled that the president had always sympathised with the Indian prisoners, who were treated even worse than the Pakistani prisoners, according to him. The president would give them sweets and soap bars, he added. He would also talk about the oppression of Ziaul Haq’s regime, Elahi said, and had a following within the jail.
Unfortunately, the bond the two shared didn’t appear to be strong enough to bring hundreds of prisoners incarcerated on this side of the border back home.
Elahi sought a meeting with President Zardari via a letter written to the Pakistani High Commission in Delhi, but received no response. He also wrote in the same regard to Indian President Pratibha Patil, and was similarly ignored. He expressed disappointment over what he described as indifference towards the issue by both sides.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 9th, 2012.