KARACHI, March 21: Families of the Pakistani fishermen imprisoned in India have expressed their concern over the continued detention of their breadwinners, saying that some of them have fallen sick due to lack of adequate facilities in the jails.
They have urged the governments of Pakistan and India to take a lenient view of the cases of the detained fishermen. Efforts should be made to find out a permanent solution to the issue of the violation of the boundary dividing their territorial waters, instead of detaining the fishermen, they stressed.
According to them, the harassment of fishermen on alleged transgressing has become a routine, they pointed out.
The aggrieved families have also sought assistance of the FCS while registering their concern over the plight of their breadwinners with an FCS director, Mohammad Yaqoob Bhatti.
Mr Bhatti told them that the FCS had been making consistent efforts for the release of the detained Pakistanis.
In this context, he also referred to the government’s initiative of releasing a number of Indian fishermen on Monday, and expressed the hope that the Indian government would also reciprocate.
Mr Yaqoob told this reporter that a bilateral agreement needed to be worked out on a permanent solution to the problem.
Such an agreement, he added, should clearly define the demarcation line between Pakistani and Indian territorial waters. The two countries should also take practical measures, like light buoys, etc., to ensure that the actual boundary was visible.
He also stressed the need for regularly updating the information relating to detained fishermen. “The ridiculous practice of exchange protocol for the release the arrested fishermen like prisoners of war should be done away with,” he said, adding that there should instead be a proper policy in this regard.
Out of some 800 Indian fishermen languishing in Pakistani jails, 529 were released on Monday along with four other Indians who had crossed into Pakistan illegally. Their release had been ordered by President Musharraf a few weeks back as a goodwill gesture. India is holding more than 100 Pakistani fishermen who, it claims, had violated its territorial waters.
