IT IS BEYOND the power of imagination for the rest of us to know the torments that must have been endured by hostage Paul Wells, of Blackburn, during the 317 long days since he was seized by separatist rebels in Kashmir.

So, too, is it impossible for us to envisage the awful roller-coaster of emotion to which his family have been subjected all that time, as hope and anguish are exchanged in cruel pendulum swings.

But now the dreadful vice tightens, with claims today that Paul may be one of two British hostages feared killed by their Kashmiri captors.

Bravely, his family refuse to give up hope.

Yet, whatever the truth and whatever the eventual outcome of this harrowing saga, it will also remain beyond the powers of imagination for those with a scrap of humanity to understand how anyone can put innocent people through such mental torture.

We know the "why" of it - a political "freedom" cause that has festered for decades on the boundaries of India and Pakistan.

But whatever the merits of that cause, just how do its adherents hope to further it when such evil is the mistaken means to their ends?

Hostage-taking has done nothing for the cause of Kashmiri separatism, other than to heap disgust upon it in the world outside.

Yet to whom do Paul Wells' captors listen?

For what concerns us is that no-one may speak to them, either to plead with them for sanity or humanity or even to revile them for their cruelty and its futility - with the result that, out of that vacuum, come sinister stratagems which may well be the sum of this report that Paul and fellow UK hostage Keith Mangan may have been killed.

The silence is deafening.

We pray that it is a token of the Foreign Office apparent policy that quiet diplomacy is the best approach and that, behind the scenes, the fullest efforts for the release and safety of Paul and his captive colleagues are afoot.

Nevertheless, some clearer indications of F.O. zeal are needed - if only to temper the torment that the hostages' families have to suffer.

Is it that, because Paul Wells and his colleagues have not the same high profile as the famous British hostages in Beirut or because Kashmir is regarded as being of small importance in the scope of our international relations, that their fate has a low priority in the resigned world of diplomacy?

If so, it is not good enough.

This evil must not prevail a moment longer than necessary.

Paul Wells and his family have all our prayers, but they are entitled to much more than that.

Especially now.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.