Accepting the apology tendered by Pakistan Air Force pilot Qais Hussain for shooting down the aircraft flown by her father during the 1965 War with the very same tenderness with which it was offered, Farida Singh on Wednesday hoped his touching letter would heal wounds not just on a personal scale but in a much wider arena.
In her reply – which Mr. Hussain posted online with her permission – Ms. Singh said: “Most of all, my father would have liked that it goes towards bringing a spark of forgiveness between our two peoples, who after all were one.” Mr. Hussain wrote the letter on August 5 and it was reported in the Pakistani daily The News under the logo ‘Aman ki Asha’.
Daughter of Indian Air Force pilot Jahangir ‘Jangoo’ Engineer, Ms. Singh in her letter acknowledges Mr. Hussain’s courage in offering the apology 46 years after the incident. According to the pilot, he shot down the aircraft being piloted by Ms. Singh’s father on instructions as it showed up on Pakistani radars after going up and down over the border area of Rann of Kutch. The Pakistanis thought it was an Indian aircraft on a reconnaissance mission but by evening it became evident that it was ferrying civilian passengers.
Admitting that it took considerable courage on her part to write back to him, Ms. Singh said though the incident defined her family’s life, “in all the struggles that followed, we never, not for one moment, bore bitterness or hatred for the person who actually pulled the trigger and caused my father’s death”.
Sharing details of her family with Mr. Hussain, she noted: “The fact that this all happened in the confusion of a tragic war was never lost to us. We are all pawns in this terrible game of War and Peace…. This incident is indeed a prime example of what damage strife and mindless battles can drive even good men to do.”
