Chinese inmates may get their lives back

Chinese inmates may get their lives back
AJAY SURI

NEW DELHI, AUG 29: New Delhi has asked Beijing, through its Embassy here, to come and identify their two countrymen, M A Siblong and Yung Chialung, who have been languishing in a Ranchi mental asylum reportedly since 1964.

Things started moving after The Indian Express last month broke the report about their 36-year-long incarceration. New Delhi, say Home Ministry officials, is now ready to hand Siblong and Chialung over to the Chinese Government as nothing incriminating is pending against them. The two inmates seem to have forgotten most of their native language. Officials say both will be returned ``untreated'' as their mental condition has only worsened over the years.

Chinese Embassy, say senior North Block officials, has ``responded favourably'' to their request. The press attache in the Chinese Embassy here, Lu Bing said: ``We are trying to check their identity, whether they are really Chinese people or not.'' He said the report had ``come as a great surprise'' and if the story was true ``it was very sad.'' He said the Chinese Government had no idea that there were two such Chinese people in India.

According to information from the Bihar administration and other Ministries, Siblong and Chialung took different routes to the asylum. Siblong has been described in official records as ``ex-PLA soldier'' at the time of his detention somewhere in NEFA in 1964. He spent the next six years in Delhi's Tihar Jail before being sent to Ranchi.

Chialung, picked up from the same area, was, however, taken to Patiala Jail in Punjab where he spent quite a few years. From there, it was Ranchi for him. And the records describe him as a ``civilian''.

Both the Defence Ministry and Army Headquarters have told the Home Ministry that neither of them is a Prisoner of War (PoW). Siblong, because of his being an ex-PLA man at the time of detention, can't be placed in PoWs bracket, officials say.

But could not the two have been identified soon after their imprisonment? Why was the Chinese Government not approached earlier? What exactly were they charged with at the time of their arrest? Nobody in the Government has an answer.