AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 7 – Panorama CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 223 of 332 irreligiosity which he proclaimed loudly to anyone who was prepared to listen to him. The Pakistani officers, who were in a separate camp, did not know what to make of him. To add to this, the Regimental Medical Officer for the camps in Gwalior was a Capt IA Shah and the officer in charge of security was a Maj Mohd Shafi of the CRPF. This was just a coincidence, but the Pakistani officers thought that this was devious Indian propaganda. One day when Col Mansoor was among them, one of them remarked that this seemed to be put on for their benefit. Mansoor was offended beyond belief and gathered Shah and Shafi next to him and asked the officer if he would like to check and said that they would all drop their pants! I think just the affrontery of the response shut them up for some time. Similarly, there was a mosque near the Camp in my charge. While the mosque could not be seen, early in the morning and late in the evening, the azaan would waft across the air. We took this in our stride, but the POW brought up on a staple of Hindu India could not or would not believe that this was for real. When I was asked, they heard me in disbelief, but I could not take anybody across just to prove the point. However, the matter solved itself. Central India is miserably hot in summer and all of us baked in the heat. Despite all precautions, a POW jawan died of heatstroke. (In today’s language, he had a co-morbidity). He had to be buried, so a grave had to be dug. A request was made by our Pakistani maulvi and some senior NCOs, if he could be buried in a proper kabaristan (burial ground). So, a party of POW under escort was taken to the nearest mosque whose azaan we heard regularly, a grave was dug and the individual in his coffin was buried with due rites. The few POW who had been out corroborated that the mosque did exist and how they had interacted with the local maulvi. After that the scepticism diminished. Another incident was more amusing to us than to the POW. It needs to be clarified that except for administrative reasons, interaction with the POW was not allowed. The few visitors who came did so with the express sanction of the ministry of defence (MoD) and thus were few and far between. So, it was a rare occasion when one day Col Mansoor rang me to say that a maulvi, who was an Islamic scholar, was coming from Delhi and would address all POW. Knowing Mansoor, he wanted to do nothing with him, but he had to meet him in his office, give him a cup of tea and pass him on to us. I asked what his name was and was told that he was, AMZ Gulzar. He duly arrived and I conducted him to one group of POW in the Camp. He was a picture postcard maulvi - fair, handsome, bearded, with a cap and an immaculate achkan. He didn’t seem to feel the heat. He asked for a stool to stand on. I sat on a chair next to him in the blistering heat. The maulvi started his talk and soon the POW started nodding their heads engrossed. Suddenly, a jawan jumped up and shouted something and fainted. No one took the slightest notice. The few near him took off his PT shoes and rubbed his soles and continued to listen intently. This happened a second time and I started worrying, remember we had just had a heatstroke case. When it happened the third time, I tugged at the maulvi’s achkan, but he just gestured to me and continued. Mercifully, he ended