Pak intelligence men torturing Hossain
Ali From Our Special Correspondent, NEW DELHI, NOV. 9-Mr. Hossian Ali, the Bengali employee who is now confined inside the Pakistan High Commission here is being tortured to sign a paper declaring his allegiance to the Yahya regime, according to Bangladesh Mission sources.
Yet the Pakistani Mission, these sources say, has not been able to get the declaration from Mr. Ali.
The continuous interrogations and torture by the Pakistan intelligence men are guided by Lt. Col. Abdul Ghani, the head of the Pakistani espionage network in India.
Apparently, the Pakistanis want to hoodwink the world Press by saying that Mr. Ali remained in the Mission premises of his own. Ali requests by foreign newsmen based here to have an interview with Mr. Ali have been turned down by them.
Mr. Ali, according to these sources, has been separated from his family. He is being kept confined in a room inside the chancery while his wife and three daughters have been kept in a family quarter inside the mission premises under guard. Mrs. Ali and her three daughters are now on hunger-strike.
The Bangladesh Mission has not yet heard anything from the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps here to whom it made a request to try for Mr. Ali’s release.
The Pakistani High Commission has been maintaining complete silence. None of its Press notes, issued daily, has made any reference to Mr. Ali.
Mr. Ali has not so far been allowed to be treated by the High Commission’s Indian doctor. It is not known whether the doctor who was recently flown to New Delhi from West Pakistan has examined him.
With the defection of the 10 Bengali employees recently the Pakistan Mission has, besides Mr. Ali, only one Bengali personnel, Mr. Reaz Rahman, a son-in-law of Mr. Hamidul Haq Chaudhury who is now collaborating with the military regime.
Mr. Rahman, who is now the acting head of the chancery, was also under order of transfer to Islamabad. Since his departure the Dehli Mission would make an entirely West Pakistani outfit, Mr. Rahman was asked to continue here. But he has practically no say in the functioning of the chancery. The chancery administration is virtually being run by Lt. Col. Abdul Ghani the head of the espionage head, who is listed as one of the first secretaries in the mission.
In spite of his being the son-in-law of a collaborator. Mr. Rahman is also a suspect in the eyes of his West Pakistani colleagues. His New Delhi residence is always guarded by handpicked intelligence men from West Pakistan who stay in the house and screen all outsiders posing as his domestic staff.
Reference: Hindustan Standard, 10.11.1971