The Pakistani government had initially planned to release 340 fishermen, but one had expired in prison, another was released before the scheduled time on humanitarian grounds as he had cancer, and a third one had a documents problem.
The released fishermen boarded buses for Lahore. They will be later handed over to the Indian authorities at the Wagah border on Saturday.
Pakistan and India regularly release fishermen detained by both sides for violating maritime limits, but the latest release is of greater significance keeping in view the increasing tensions between the two countries because of the accusations of ceasefire violations along the Kashmir border in recent days.
Sami Memon, the spokesperson for the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, told The News that there were 97 more Indian fishermen detained in Pakistani prisons over the same charges.
“These fishermen have been released after a long struggle by the PFF and other civil society groups,” he added.
“At the end of last month, 14 Pakistani fishermen were released from Indian prisons when they had completed their prison terms there.”
Memon appealed to the Indian government to release around 150 fishermen detained in different prisons of the Indian city of Gujarat. Most of them belong to the coastal belt of Sindh.
“It is unfortunate that there are more than 66 Pakistani fishermen languishing in Indian jails for the past 13 to19 years. It has not even been declared that they are fishermen,” rued Memon.
“These fishermen considered missing here but my organisation believes that they are in Indian prisons. These ignored workers need amnesty on humanitarian grounds. In many cases, cyclones push their boats into the other country’s maritime territory.”
Memon said the Indian government had released three “civilians” who were actually fishermen from Ibrahim Hyderi when it had recently released 14 detained Pakistani fishermen.
“As they were not declared fishermen, they were left in Lahore. Later, they were taken to Karachi when the authorities learnt about their actual whereabouts,” he exlained.
“It is a common practice that when prisoners are released on the border, they are separated as civilians and fishermen.”
These fishermen, Memon said, were part of a crew of five and the remaining two - Hussain and Hanif – were still in Indian prisons as they had to pay the imposed fine.
“Generally, the Fishermen Cooperative Society which is a semi-government organisation does not know about the whereabouts of the missing fishermen.”
Memon demanded that the government should facilitate the PFF and provide opportunity to it for arranging the release of detained Pakistani fishermen and to pay the fine if it had been imposed on them in India.
Pakistani and Indian civil societies have been playing an active role for the release of fishermen from both countries’ prisons. Their common demand has been to issue identity cards to the crew of both sides, allowing them to enjoy fish catch within 100-nauticial miles of agreed territory of both sides without any fear.
Compliance report
The Sindh High Court chief justice directed the interior ministry on Friday to submit a compliance report after repatriating the detained Indian fishermen who had completed their sentence periods in Pakistani prison, adds Jamal Khurshid.
The release of the 340 Indian fishermen became possible on the directives of the SHC. SHC Chief Justice Mushir Alam had taken up the cases of four Indian fishermen - Mewar, Manooj, Ramesh and Vipol - in June who had submitted that they were not being released by the authorities despite serving their sentences.
The court had sought a report from jail authorities regarding the status of foreign prisoners who had served their sentences but were not being repatriated and ordered their immediate release.
SHC CJ had directed the interior ministry and the Sindh home department to pursue the process of the repatriation of the convicts who had completed their sentences or acquitted by the court.
Justice Alam had observed that because of the non-repatriation of these prisoners, the prisons were overcrowded.
In compliance with the court order issued on July 20 for the release of 395 Indian prisoners, the interior ministry had submitted that the national status of 340 Indian fishermen had been confirmed by the Indian High Commission while that of the remaining 50 fishermen was still pending.
Zurghan Shahzad, the interior ministry’s section officer, had submitted that two civil prisoners, Latiful Haq and Mohammad Hanif, had already been released on July 9 whereas the confirmation of the national status of two remaining prisoners, Sonu Singh and Danesh Chander, was still to be confirmed by the Indian authorities.
He said the national status of one civil prisoner, Rafiq Jatt, had been confirmed by the Indian High Commission, but his sentence had not completed yet.
The ministry had assured the court that 340 Indian prisoners would be repatriated on August 24 through the Wagah border while the remaining 50 fishermen and three civil prisoners would be freed after confirmation of their national status and completion of their sentence term.
Source: http://tinyurl.com/mkfblgv
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