The other Kuttys who died unsung

Chandigarh: Maniappan Kutty, the Indian Border Roads Organisation (BRO) driver, killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan was not the first Indian to have been killed there.

There have been many more who went unheard. One of them was Chain Singh, a hockey coach from India, who went missing in Afghanistan 25 years ago.

Chain Singh had gone to Afghanistan to train a team of Afghan hockey players which was to play against the Russian team in Moscow.

He was kidnapped with his team in April 1980 from Kandoos and has not been heard of since.

Though the Indian government has declared him dead, his family refuses to believe them.

For 25 years the family has been living in hope of any news of Singh. Kanchan Salaria, his wife, has been busy waging a long-drawn paper battle with the bureaucracy, writing and receiving letters from various ministries and corresponding even with the Prime Minister?s Office (PMO).

But one letter from the MEA gave her the news she still doesn?t want to believe: the death of her husband.

"Chain Singh was kidnapped from near Kabul. He was coaching an Afghan hockey team. The hot-tempered Afghan Mujahideen did not want the Afghan team to play in Russia, so they kidnapped the whole team on April 20, 1980," Kannchan says. "I came to know about it through others. Neither the Indian government nor Afghan government told me anything. For seven years. I kept meeting everyone but did not find out anything," she adds

Kanchan spent seven more years in Kabul along with her young son waiting for her husband.

According to rules, a missing person if not traced for seven years is declared dead.

She came back to Pathankoat and started a new life in her in-law's house. Ravinder, her son, now 25, was only four years old when his father went missing.

"I was in 10+2 when we came back to India in 1987. We had to struggle for benefits. Mujahideen commanders who had kidnapped him are still functional there," Ravinder says.

Four members of the hockey team had escaped from the kidnap. They claim that five players were shot dead while attempting to escape, but the coach and seven players were still in custody.

(with inputs from Jyoti Kamal)