Kota (Rajasthan): Two days after the Supreme Court directed the Centre to pay Rs 10 lakh compensation to him, 75-yr-old Mahmood Ansari from Rajasthan's Kota, who claims he spent 14 years in Pakistani jail as an Indian spy, said he was not content with the decision as it had not addressed his being deprived of service benefits.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday awarded Ansari Rs 10 lakh in compensation while hearing his plea that he was working in the Railway Mail Service in the 1970s when he was sent to Pakistan for spying. The apex court said that while the government had admitted that Ansari worked in the mail service department in Rajasthan, it failed to contradict Ansari's claim that he travelled to Pakistan successfully twice before he was captured by authorities there in 1976.
The counsel for the petitioner told the court that Ansari was working in the Railway Mail Service in Jaipur, when in June 1974 he was recruited by the Special Intelligence Bureau and sent to Pakistan twice on a secret mission. However, he was intercepted by the Pakistani Rangers and arrested on December 12, 1976. He was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act in Pakistan, and in 1978 sentenced to 14 years in prison.
The apex court also said that the government had failed to explain why it did not dismiss Ansari for the “unauthorised absence between 1976 and 1980”. In a special conversation with ETV Bharat, Ansari, his wife Waheedan, and daughter Fatima said that they are not satisfied with the decision which had not addressed Ansari's dismissal from service.
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“I was working in the RMS from 1976 till 2007 and I deserve the service benefits for the said period, but I have been denied the money," Ansari said. He said that after his return from Pakistan upon completing 14 years in jail where he was subjected to torture, he made several rounds from officials to ministers, but to no avail.
Waheedan said Ansari had not revealed anything about the spying assignment until a letter came from him after two years of his sudden disappearance. “He never even told us about this secret mission. However, two years after her disappearance, a letter suddenly came. This letter opened the secret,” she said, adding Ansari contacted him from Pakistan jail only through a letter and with the help of her brother who was in Kenya at that time.
Ansari's daughter, who was 11 months old when Ansari was arrested in Pakistan, said that the Rs 10 lakh compensation award by the SC “cannot be the price for the nationalism we have shown”. She demanded that the service benefits of her father be restored so that they are able to live a dignified life. Fatima said that in absence of her father, they were forced to sell off their property including jewelry and even furniture.
“We also had a small plot in Basant Vihar, that too was sold,” said Fatima. The family alleged that during this time neither the Government of India nor the postal department came forward to help them in the difficult time.
