The CAP OHP team interviewed Bilal Farooqi in December 2015. In his interview, Bilal Farooqui spoke to the OHP team about his short yet horrifying time spent in the Bahadurgarh Fort in Patiala prior to coming to Pakistan. Mr.Farooqi started off his interview by saying ” Refugee camp? It was more like a concentration camp”. According to Mr.Farooqi, the restrictions that they were subjected to were not normal. They were confined to closed walls. When new refugees arrived, they were accommodated in the barracks. They were not allowed to venture out.
Anyone who dared to go any further would be shot. The enclosures were forced and if anybody died in the camp, which was very frequent, their funeral was held in the camp. Bodies were then taken to the third end of the closed wall and handed over to the Sikh troops outside. Nobody knew where the body was taken or what was done to the bodies.
They were either destroyed or thrown off in a pit or some other place; this was the usual method of burying the dead.Due to the weather conditions people also started contracting pneumonia and those who were injured and had no proper medical care or anyone who had fever, it was certain that he or she would die.
Accordingly to Mr. Farooqui, in his three months spent at the camp, three thousand people ended up dying due to unhygienic conditions. There was nothing to eat for people and basic ration was only provided every two months. A truck would arrive containing flour, lentils and firewood and this was the best they could get.
There was no bathroom, so people would have to dig up trenches. There was no water either. In his last month, things became slightly more relax for refugees. Sometimes someone would smuggle a pack of cards inside and it would help people forget about the tragedy that they were all going through. People would sleep wherever they could find a place.
Although Mr. Farooqui was young but he feared that he would not be able to survive the camp but soon he was given assurance by MianIftikharuddin that soon a special train which would just be assigned for them, would take them all to Pakistan.
Text and pic by CAP