LAHORE, Aug 22: Forty one prisoners who returned from Afghanistan were relesed from the Kot Lakhpat Jail on Friday.

Moving scenes were witnessed when prisoners met their loved ones after around three years outside the Kot Lakhpat jail. Many of them were in tears. They complained of inhuman treatment in Afghan prisons.

Family members of the prisoners had to wait for several hours outside the jail to complete the process of furnishing surety bonds.

“We have to get surety bonds that they will not take part in any anti-state activity in future,” a prison official said. Copies of these bonds would be given to the district administration and the police to ensure their monitoring, the official said.

The prisoners on their release were taken to the house of a Punjab government adviser on religious harmony.

“I had given two sons in the name of Allah. I do not have any regrets. I expect reward from Allah. My sons fought for Allah and Islam. One of them was martyred,” Muhammad Ishaq of Bhakkar district told reporters.

His son Rehmatullah was martyred in a battle in Afghanistan while the other son, Saifullah, returned. Saif said a religious leader in his locality had persuaded him and other youngsters to go to the Afghan Jihad.

He wanted to talk to reporters but the adviser and his men intervened and did not allow him to do so. They also barred the other prisoners from talking to the reporters.

However, another prisoner Faizur Rehman, 40, a resident of Lahore, said: “I would just say that I am happy. Thank God that I am with my family again.”

The prisoners were given a lunch and later the adviser asked them to spend their lives for the betterment of their families.

The prisoners, who returned from Afghanistan in May, were held at Peshawar and Kot Lakhpat jails for questioning.

The adviser said the prisoners had been questioned and none of them had been found involved in any anti-state activity. “None of them had anything to do with Al Qaeda or any other such organization.”

He said efforts were being made to get back all Pakistanis detained in Afghan prisons.