The lecturer, Narinder Singh Parmar, commenced the presentation by extending a warm welcome to the distinguished audience, comprising scholars, senior fellows, and researchers. He introduced the day’s subject as one of the most harrowing, yet least recognised, chapters in Indian Military History: the survival stories of 3,000 Indian Prisoners of War (POWs) in the jungles of Papua New Guinea during the Second World War. Mr Parmar highlighted the grim statistics that framed this narrative, noting that of the 3,000 soldiers taken from Singapore and forced into labour between 1943 and 1945, only approximately 201 survived to tell the tale.
