Monday, May 12, 2008, Jamadi-ul-Awwal 5, 1429    

Plight of Pak prisoners in Indian jails may overshadow talks

New Delhi—The issue of plight of Pakistani prisoners languishing in Indian jails may overshadow the forthcoming Pak-India Ministerial talks scheduled to be held on May 21 in Islamabad.
Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee will travel to Pakistan to hold a wrap up meeting with his Pakistani counter-part Shah Mehmood Qureshi on the fourth round of Composite Dialogue concluded last year.
Lack of response from Indian side to Pakistani requests for granting consular access to Pakistani prisoners, their miserable conditions, deaths of two young Pakistani nationals Khalid Mehmood and Muhammed Akram in a row during the past two months under mysterious circumstances and dilly dallying attitude on providing information about their number and status have become one of the biggest impediment in improving bilateral relations in the recent months.
This all happened despite the fact that Pakistan released an Indian spy Kashmir Singh in March last, postponement of execution of Sarabjit Singh, who is on a death row for his involvement in bomb blasts and providing consular access to all 400 Indian fishermen in Pakistani jails.
Lack of reciprocity from the Indian side in the same spirit in the present situation when the two countries are engaged in dialogue process to normalise bilateral relations, has sent a wave of grave concern in corridors of power in Islamabad as well as in the public.
Under the bilateral agreements inked by New Delhi and Islamabad, India is bound to inform Pakistan whenever Pakistani nationals are taken into custody. It is unfortunate that the names of Khalid Mehmood and Muhammed Akram who died in Gurgaon jail and Amritsar jail respectively were not included in the list 0f 147 Pakistani prisoners provided by India to Islamabad on March 31. Nobody knows when and where they were taken into custody by Indian authorities.
The miseries being suffered by civilian prisoners are a pure humanitarian issue which has thrown a challenge to human rights activists on both sides of the borders.
It was unfortunate that Pakistan High Commission’s repeated requests have fallen on deaf ears so far for providing complete information about Pakistani prisoners in Indian jails. Pakistan has also sought consular access to over two hundred Pakistanis and repatriation of fourteen fishermen whose modalities for release have already been completed. New Delhi has not yet repatriated over fifty prisoners whose travelling documents have been issued by Pakistan High Commission.—APP