JOIN US81-year-old mother moves SC for return of Captain son from Pakistani jail
About 24 years after Captain Sanjit Bhattarjee of Gorkha Rifles went missing from the Rann of Kutch in Rajasthan, bordering Pakistan, his 81-year-old mother, Kamla Bhattacharjee has approached the Supreme Court seeking directions to the Centre to take immediate steps for the release of his son.
A bench presided over by Chief Justice S A Bobde issued notice to the Centre on her plea and asked her counsel to collect information about other such cases.
The last 23 years have been traumatic for Kamla Bhattacharjee. She has been fighting an endless battle to meet her son, an Indian Army officer, who she believed was languishing in a Kot Lakhpat Central Jail in Lahore in Pakistan.
The grieving mother said she is fighting a lonely fight, after she lost her husband in November last year.
According to the plea, Sanjit was on patrol duty from April 14-19, 1997, along with other members at night on a joint border along the Rann of Kutch, Gujarat and Pakistan. However, on the next day, 20 April, 1997, only 15 of platoon members returned without the petitioner’s son and another platoon member, Lance Naik Ram Bahadur Thapa.
Both the petitioner's son and the other person were said to have gone missing in suspicious circumstances. The petitioner-mother claimed to have got a copy of a radio intercept confirming that her was captured by Pakistan Rangers and thereafter he was handed over to the Pakistan Army.
In 2004, the petitioner’s family received a letter from the Ministry of Defence saying her son was presumed to be dead.
However, on one fine day, the petitioner received a vital piece of information stating that her son was held in captivity in Kot Lakhpat Jail also known as Central Jail Lahore, Pakistan.
The petitioner immediately requested the Ministry of Defence to extract further information. However, they received a response that no fresh developments were recorded in the matter.
“The respondent appears to have disowned the bravehearts in exile or missing and has demonstrated a high degree of negligence in conducting a result-oriented search. Such act is also prohibited under the Article nine of the United Nations Declaration," the plea filed through advocate Saurabh Mishra stated.