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A life-term as prisoners of war

Two Chinese soldiers held captive since the 1962 Sino-Indian war are eking out their days in an asylum in eastern India -- the longest recorded detention of war prisoners on the subcontinent.

The case of the two Chinese -- registered as Ma Shiblong, 62, and Lin Chiayung, 65, at the fortress-like Central Institute of Psychiatry in Ranchi in Jharkhand -- is wrapped in secrecy.

Their only visitors are secret service agents, officials at the state-run research facility told AFP.

CIP Director Samsul Haq said Ma and Lin were not permitted civilian visitors but declined to identify them as Chinese prisoners of war, saying for him they were patients who showed "psychotic behavior."

Ma and Lin, both from China's Peoples Liberation Army, were captured in Arunachal Pradesh during the 1962 border war and were sent here by the Indian Army in 1970 from a detention centre in northern Punjab, government sources said.

Their continued detention without trial has prompted even the state authorities to urge Delhi to offer them freedom, but officials in Ranchi said a bureaucratic maze stood between the two Chinese and their liberty.

"They should be released on humanitarian grounds," said Director General of Police K A Jacob.

"Here are two men away from their families, away from their society and that is very sad," Jacob added.

The Chinese embassy in New Delhi said its requests to visit the two prisoners and probe their backgound had been met with silence since the case came to light earlier this year.

"We talked to the Indian side and urged them to let us conduct our own investigations, but as yet we have had no answer," said embassy spokesman Lu Bing.

"As it stands, we cannot even confirm they are Chinese citizens."

An AFP correspondent visited the 300-acre (121-hectare) facility and saw the two walk aimlessly around one of the crowded wards.

Patients and wardens said despite their 30-year detention at the CIP, both Ma and Lin could only speak two words of Hindi -- tea and biscuit.

"There is no communication. We are not allowed to bring in Chinese interpreters to speak to the two," said a facility researcher who declined to be identified.

"Their perennial depression is acute and now they do not even talk much to each other. It seems to me they have abandoned much of their hope," he added.

CIP director Haq said the situation was complex.

"The only people that come to see them are Intelligence Bureau officials. They pay the standard monthly maintenance fee of Rs 300 for each of them to us and that is all."

Haq said the CIP has written several letters to the government to try and resolve the case, but had yet to receive a reply.

"We are making a list of people who can be discharged," Haq said. "But they can go home only if the government waives the maintenance allowance. Because if there is a bill outstanding against an inmate we cannot release him due to our audit problems."

The Ranchi Police said on an average five inmates escaped every month and that suicides were frequent at the CIP, which admits 2,500 patients every year and treats 10 times that number as outpatients.

AFP

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