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PoW families hopeful after Kashmir Singh's release
Published on Wed, Mar 05, 2008 at 01:06 in 
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A HEALTHY PRECEDENT: The wives of PoWs are hopeful of securing the release of their husbands.
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New Delhi: The release of Kashmir Singh has given a glimmer of hope to families of other Prisoners of War who had been captured in the 1971 Indo-Pak War.
Not once in 37 years did Jasbir Singh believe that her husband, Major Kanwaljeet Singh, could be dead.
Singh was captured by Pakistani soldiers in Husnewalla in 1971. But Jasbir has waited patiently, dismissed every skeptical voice around her and believed that her husband could still be alive in a Pakistani jail. The almost-miraculous return of Kashmir Singh has only strengthened her belief.
“Whenever some one comes back we become hopeful. We've actually never lost hope,” Jasbir Singh said.
Her daughter Jaspreet only knows her father through photographs but she is sure she would see him one day.
Last year, Jasbir went to Pakistan with 13 other families of PoWs to look for their loved ones. There, she was told by a man working in the Lahore jail that Major Kanwaljeet was alive. Since then, Jasbir has been contacted by another man from Lahore, who also says he has seen Kanwaljeet.
“My hope is that some day a kind-hearted soul realises that these men have a family waiting for them in India and sends them home,” Jaspreet Singh says.
Similar to Jasbir’s tale is her friend Damayanti Tambe’s.
Tambe last saw her husband, Flight Lieutenant Vasant Tambe, before the ‘71 war. In 1972, she read about her husband's capture in a Pakistani newspaper. Since the Army has not given her any further information, Tambe says her hopes are still alive.
“There are Indian people in Pakistani jails and if Kashmir can come after 36 years, why can't our husbands?” Damayanti Tambe wondered.
Though many say that Damayanti and Jasbir are probably holding on to a thread that doesn't even exist, the two women continue living in hope.
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