The Hindu : Pak. to release 20 Indian prisoners today

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 17, 2003

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Pak. to release 20 Indian prisoners today

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD May 16. As a follow-up to the May 6 confidence building measures (CBMs) announced by Pakistan's Prime Minister, Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, Islamabad would hand over to the Indian authorities tomorrow at the Wagah border 20 Indian prisoners lodged in different Pakistani jails.

Officials of the Indian High Commission have already reached Lahore today en route to Wagah to receive the prisoners and facilitate their entry into India. Of the 20 prisoners, 14 are crew members of an Indian cargo boat, Raj Laxmi, and six Sikh youths. The crew have been in Pakistan for several months since the boat sank in the Arabian Sea, near Karachi.

The story of the Sikh youths is tragic. Over a year ago, Pakistan arrested 22 Sikh youth on its Iranian border. Capricious agents selling dreams of a good life in Europe tempted these youths to travel to Greece via the land route. Their luck ended at the Iranian border as the guards pushed them into Pakistan. Only six of the 22 will be free tomorrow. The rest will have to wait for some more time as India is still verifying their credentials.

Mr. Jamali's "goodwill gesture" to release Indian prisoners was without any qualification and covered all categories. There are three categories of Indian prisoners in Pakistani jails besides those supposed to have been held after the 1965 and 1971 wars. Islamabad has repeatedly denied the presence of PoWs and even offered to allow an Indian delegation to visit Pakistan to verify the facts.

The three categories are the 14 crew members of Raj Laxmi; 22 Sikh youth and 250 or so fishermen who had strayed into Pakistani territorial waters while fishing off the Gujarat coast. It appears that Pakistan has asked the Sindh provincial government to collect information on Indian fishermen in various jails to give consular access to the Indian mission. The process might take a few weeks.

There is a sense of disappointment in Islamabad over what is perceived as New Delhi's "lukewarm" response to the CBMs proposed by Mr. Jamali. The proposals include the restoration of the rail and road links and the strength of the mission prior to the "diplomatic sanctions" imposed by India; resumption of the sporting ties and a dialogue on nuclear security-related issues as agreed in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the Lahore Declaration.

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