This son wants to hug his father presently in Pak jail

A son from Muktsar in Punjab has appealed to the India Government to use all its might and resources to save his father, who has been languishing in a Pakistan jail since 1971.

Amrik Singh was a toddler when his father Surjit Singh was captured by Pakistan during the 1971 India-Pakistan war. Surjit, who was serving the Border Security Force (BSF) in Samba sector of Jammu and Kashmir during the war, disappeared one day.

The Indian Army repeatedly searched Surjit but he wasn't traced. In 1974, Surjit was declared dead and his family was given all benefits.

In 2004, when few prisoners were freed by Pakistan then Amrik and his mother Angrej Kaur came to know that Surjit was alive and lodged in Kot Lakhpat Jail as a prisoner of war.

Since then, Amrik has been running from pillar to post to get his father released from Pakistan.

The case of Indian Navy official Kulbhusan Jadhav, who has been awarded death sentence by a Pakistan military court, has made Amrik and his mother fearful. "We fear that one day we should not listen to the news of my father's fate like of Jadhav," said Amrik, who has written a letter to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.

"They will hang my father too. The death sentence awarded to Jadhav has shaken us," Amrik said in his letter to Swaraj, adding he wants to hug his father at least once in his lifetime.

He wants that the Indian Government should leave no stone unturned to save his father and other Indian nationals who have been languishing in Pakistani jails.