AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 7 – Panorama CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 220 of 332 principles of administration of soldiers. This was as good a method as any and we were able to rise to the expectations of our wise Army Commander. This is the story of that period when I was a POW Camp Commandant for a period of little over one year. In this setup we began work and initially there were many glitches. One example was the preparation of a muster roll of POW showing who exactly was in the Camp. Army number, rank, regiment, age, was easy. The problem was that every other Pakistani soldier had `Mohammed’ in his name and they all spelled it differently. As we were being defeated by this seemingly innocuous difficulty, we agreed that forget the full form, the name would always be abbreviated as Mohd. This simplified the process and we improvised like this all the time. Routine and Activities The routine was the same as what we followed in our Army. Fortunately, as the Pakistan Army had similar procedures, it was easy to get the POW to conform and they too recognised what they had to do. There was one major difference in that there was a roll call three times a day, so that any escape could be noticed within the space of few hours. After dinner, the POW were confined to their barracks except to answer the call of nature and arrangements were made so that these facilities were used only at night. The bathrooms and latrines were in one corner and had waterborne sanitation. The Camp staff had no responsibility for external security. This was provided by a unit sized force usually of the Territorial Army or the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). They had their own rules and procedures for guard duties, their turnover, administration and everything that a unit does. Every camp had three fences, the first enclosing the barracks, the second a few metres away and an outer perimeter. The space in between could be patrolled by the sentries and outside the outer fence there were watch towers and for the night, flood lights. Additionally, inside the camp nearest the first wire fence, a line was drawn one metre inside, beyond which a POW could not approach the fence on the pain of being shot at. This was a wise precaution. How had such detailed instructions been put in place so quickly? No one told us but I surmised that some obscure office in Army HQ had dusted out old instructions which in turn were passed on to us. It was efficiently done under the supervision of the Army Commander who had a wholesome, if intimidating, reputation as an able administrator.