Firdous Street
Ganda Nallah
Bahawalnagar City-62300
Punjab
Tele: 0631-73682

3 January 1999

My dear Ikram,

The onrush of the year 2000 caused me to pause and look back to what were for me the 'golden days' of what would seem to be another world.

It is strange that the true perspective shines much clearer than it was almost half a century ago. If the mouldering finger of time dims the memories but it also enhances the perspective. Major A M Sehgal GSO-2, 14 Division (High Court premises DHAKA) 1953-54. Whenever I stood face to face with him I could not help feeling unsteady because his gaze was penetrating deep down into my inner mind, so that I felt myself naked and exposed. Only those who were tested and proved could be admitted into his inner circle of trust and confidence. What now today strikes me most of all is the absolutely unbendable and unshakeable self-confidence of his own convictions which were literally cast-iron.

Last year, of course I did write a pen-picture of him. He had such a charming and warming manner reminiscent of the old-fashioned British courtesy, so it is not at all disrespectful to describe him as 'a Ladies' man'. It was a peculiar sort of magnetic charm which he radiated and I used to think that how nicely he would blend at the Buckingham Palace garden parties amongst the British female aristocracy.

Somehow I felt that nobody could ever probe deep inside him because he had such an impregnable outer shield. I noticed how the Bengali troops always referred to him as 'Sehgal Shabib' whereas they referred to all the other COs as 'Colonel Sahib' - and that just goes to prove how he had won over their love and regard for him. There was a special sort of halo around him, reserved for him ONLY. The troops are very observant and they would have discovered his sincerity of purpose, his dedication to the 'Junior Tigers' and his unflinching principle to stand up for them. So if he was 'the ladies' man' off duty but he was very much the soldiers' man - and they knew it.

But in this cruel and heartless world today, the old and precious values are discarded and even ridiculed but I refuse point blank to accept this trend. Lt-Colonel Abdul Majeed Sehgal was in his own individual style a giant of his times but it does take almost half a century to now see him in true perspective.

So coming into the dawn of a new century you are not absolutely alone to face the harsh realities because I am very much with you and there must be a few others also to share your very rich heritage.

While memory serves ... I hope you would affix this as an Appendix 'A' to that detailed pen-picture (final ACR) which I had compiled last year. Of course we have to excuse all those ignorant persons who had never known your Dad - that was their loss.

With loving regards

Jil 

January 10, 2000

'Terrorist Cleansing or Genocide'

Dear Sir,

Russia is violating all norms of warfare and numerous international conventions by making extensive use of fuel air explosives delivered by aircraft and rockets. These weapons release a fine mist of explosive fuel over a target, then detonate. The resulting blasts are of enormous destructive power second only to tactical nuclear weapons. All of the oxygen under the blast zone's footprint the size of a football field is burned up, sucking the air out of the lungs of victims. The devastating pressure ruptures internal organs and kills anyone sheltering in basements or bunkers.

Grozny and most other Chechen towns have been blasted to ruins by fuel air and conventional explosives. The Russians have showered tens of thousands of anti-personnel mines in Chechnya's mountainous south in an effort to seal the border with Georgia. Foreign journalists are being kept out of the war zone lest they report details of Russia's latest slaughter of the rebellious Chechens. Almost all news on the conflict comes from Moscow's propaganda organs, which keep repeating the mantra that Chechens are 'Islamic terrorists' - where have we heard this before? - who must be 'cleansed'.

There are more than combatants being killed. People who are not fighting a war. People who want to live to play with their grandchildren, who were living peacefully, trying to get by. Until the Russians began methodically destroying their homes and killing the people with rockets, artillery, gas, cluster bombs, napalm, mines, vacuum bombs and Scud missiles with the pretense that they are after terrorists.

The latest but not the least in most grave 'Human rights violations' by the Russian military is that all Chechen males aged between 10 and 60 would now automatically be treated as rebels and detained for 'thorough' checks. Why is the UN and the champions of 'Human rights' and the so-called 'International community', silent on this latest genocide of Chechen Muslims?

Why is Iran being the current chairperson of the OIC silent on the brutal genocide of the Chechens, Is Iran selling out on the Chechens once again as it sold out on the 'Russian invasion of Afghanistan' in 1979. For what? For the sake of its relations with the Russians, and then on top of it all, Iran calls itself an Islamic country - being the Chairperson it has a cardinal duty to the security needs of all the Muslims of the Ummah. Iran must be forced to realize that all fingers in the Islamic world are now pointing towards them, for not calling an immediate convention of the members of OIC.

We ask the governments of all Muslim countries:

(1) To take all the necessary steps to stop the Russian government in its genocidal war in Chechnya.

(2) To persuade America and U.K along with their allies - Arab countries to do the same.

(3) To persuade Iran who is currently the Chairperson for the OIC, to call its immediate conven- tion, and not to sell out on the Chechen Muslims. Wassalam.

Best Regards

Farhat Malik
Lahore Pakistan
IICG: International Islamic Contact Group.

From: Abdul M. Ismail <abdul_m.ismail@virgin.net>
To: <defjrnl@cyber.net.pk>
Subject: FAO Ikram-ul-Majeed Sehgal, Publisher & Managing Editor
Date: Monday, January 24, 2000 2:07 AM

Dear Mr. Sehgal,

I'm an Aerospace Engineer specialising in Rocket Engine Design and Development but have a keen interest in the factors which led to the creation of my country, Bangladesh.

I read, with great interest, your online edition of the Defence Journal. I find it an invaluable source of information of the 1971 conflict, in particular from the (West) Pakistani perspective. I enclose a list of books I've collected to date followed by those I still seek. I seek titles, for example, such as Brig. Z. A. Khan's 'The Way it Was' and Maj. Gen. Tajammul Hussein Malik's 'The Story of My Struggle' which have been mentioned in the past few issues of your esteemed journal. I've tried all types of book searches and have no luck in procuring them and hope that your readers may be able to assist.

I would greatly appreciate it if you could include this list in your journal together with my personal particulars which I include at the foot of this page.

Yours sincerely,

Abdul M. Ismail
100 Greenhill Road
Mossley Hill
Liverpool L18 7HN, England, UK
abdul_m.ismail@virgin.net

'BOOKS WANTED'