Prison diaries: pray that you never see a place like this. And if you do, pray that you will have something to read. Sometimes I get the reading material I ask for. Not always. Here is what I have read recently: a letter that Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto wrote from his death cell, smuggled out by a sympathetic guard.
“I have developed boils and rashes all over my body. My gums are swollen and bleeding. Pus oozes from them. I am deprived of basic amenities such as dental equipment. As an ultimate indignity to me, Zia’s government has brought in dental equipment - but insisted that it be kept between the death cell and the toilet. This is a degrading absurdity.
“I was arrested in the early hours of September 3, 1977, in the month of Ramzan, from my residence at 70, Clifton in Karachi by commandos, army jawans, and personnel of the FIA at the point of sten guns and other automatic weapons.
“I was flown to Lahore and kept in an army bungalow equipped with a single, blue light bulb. Military vehicles surrounded the building and 20 army jawans paraded in the compound round the clock. The ceaseless sound of their goose steps on the gravel and the noise of digging at nightfall made it impossible to get a wink of sleep. It reminded me of what Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rehman had told me in 1972 about the digging done outside his prison cell. It was part of the psychological warfare to break his nerve.
“I was locked in a tiny cell infested with flies and mosquitoes and I began to suffer attacks of vomiting, high temperature, and severe chest pains. The public prosecutor’s statement to the Supreme Court that three rooms and a courtyard had been placed at my disposal, was a blatant lie.
“Soon, I began to vomit blood and bleed from the nose. By mid-April I had lost 40 pounds. I was shifted to Rawalpindi jail on May 17, 1978.”
Zindaan ki aik shaam
NS
“I have developed boils and rashes all over my body. My gums are swollen and bleeding. Pus oozes from them. I am deprived of basic amenities such as dental equipment. As an ultimate indignity to me, Zia’s government has brought in dental equipment - but insisted that it be kept between the death cell and the toilet. This is a degrading absurdity.
“I was arrested in the early hours of September 3, 1977, in the month of Ramzan, from my residence at 70, Clifton in Karachi by commandos, army jawans, and personnel of the FIA at the point of sten guns and other automatic weapons.
“I was flown to Lahore and kept in an army bungalow equipped with a single, blue light bulb. Military vehicles surrounded the building and 20 army jawans paraded in the compound round the clock. The ceaseless sound of their goose steps on the gravel and the noise of digging at nightfall made it impossible to get a wink of sleep. It reminded me of what Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rehman had told me in 1972 about the digging done outside his prison cell. It was part of the psychological warfare to break his nerve.
“I was locked in a tiny cell infested with flies and mosquitoes and I began to suffer attacks of vomiting, high temperature, and severe chest pains. The public prosecutor’s statement to the Supreme Court that three rooms and a courtyard had been placed at my disposal, was a blatant lie.
“Soon, I began to vomit blood and bleed from the nose. By mid-April I had lost 40 pounds. I was shifted to Rawalpindi jail on May 17, 1978.”
Zindaan ki aik shaam
NS