PESHAWAR, Jan 22: The interior ministry has directed home departments of the four provinces to immediately send particulars of about 550 Afghan prisoners being kept in different prisons of the country, it was learnt reliably.

Official sources said that Islamabad had decided in principle to set free some 550 Afghan nationals, including women and children, to reciprocate the Karzai-led government’s goodwill gesture of releasing over 700 Pakistani prisoners in the recent past.

Kabul had requested Islamabad to release those Afghan nationals who had been arrested by the provincial governments for minor offences.

The interior ministry, the sources said, had asked for the details to work out final arrangements for the release of the Afghans.

The sources said that the Afghan government had set free around 701 Pakistani prisoners of war from the Kabul jail and other prisons in the central and northern Afghanistan during the last couple of months.

According to official figures, about 795 prisoners of war were still languishing in various Afghan prisons, including 600 in Shibarghan, 50 in Bamiyan, 40 in Herat and 100 in Panjsher Valley.