India releases 43 Pakistani prisoners |
Khaleej Times (30th June 2007) ISLAMABAD - Forty-three Pakistanis, including two women, returned home on Saturday after years in Indian prisons for minor crimes like illegally crossing the border and overstaying, officials said. The prisoners were handed over to Pakistani authorities at the Attari-Wagah border in Pakistan’s central province of Punjab. ‘Many of these people had to stay for over a decade in Indian prisoners because they had mistakenly crossed over the border into India or could not complete the official procedure to prolong their stay in the country,’ an official with the Pakistani border security forces said. Meanwhile, Pakistan will release 50 Indian inmates from prison in the southern port city of Karachi on Sunday, said Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International, a human rights group which has led a decades-long campaign in both countries for the release of each others’ prisoners. ‘The Indian prisoners will return their home country through the Pakistan-India border at Wahgah on Monday,’ vice chairman of the trust Syed Sarim Burney said in a statement. The move by the two countries is a confidence-building measure ahead of home secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan starting from July 3, where the two sides will review progress on the joint terror mechanism and ways to tackle the problem of drug trafficking. Currently 513 Pakistani prisoners are held in Indian jails, including 50 fishermen. New Delhi is awaiting the confirmation of the nationality of 48 other fishermen, who would be repatriated immediately after their identity was established, an Indian official told Press Trust of India on Friday Press Back on your browser to Return
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