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smh.com.au, Monday, August 28, 2000
POWs still captive after 38
years
Hong Kong: Two Chinese prisoners of war are languishing in an
Indian mental hospital 38 years after being captured by Indian
troops, the South China Morning Post has reported.
The two men were captured during the Sino-Indian border war in
1962 and three years later put into the mental hospital in Ranchi
in the east Indian state of Bihar, the newspaper said last
weekend. India's Home Affairs Ministry denied any knowledge of
the prisoners, and Beijing's Foreign Ministry said it would
investigate the case.
The newspaper quoted hospital staff as saying the pair - former
fighter pilot Yang Chen and his officer Shih Liang - spoke no
Hindi or English and communicated with signs and gestures. They
said the men had schizophrenia-related problems when they arrived
after spending three years in a New Delhi jail following their
capture, but they had recovered more than 30 years ago.
"They are no longer ill at all but they don't have anywhere
to go so they remain here," a ward attendant said.
Mr Yang Chen, now in his 60s, shuffles around the hospital using
a walking stick. Mr Shih Liang is younger and appears to be in
better health, mixing with the hospital's 450 other inmates.
Hospital officials said they had had no correspondence about the
men from either the Chinese Government or army since they were
admitted.
The director of the Institute of Psychiatry in Ranchi, Shamsui
Haque Nizami, admitted the presence of two Chinese but said
"we cannot give any more information".
A spokesman for the Home Affairs Ministry said they had checked
with the army and defence ministry and the men's names did not
appear on their list of prisoners of war.
India and China fought a short but ferocious border war across
the Himalayas in 1962. (Deutsche Presse-Agentur)