LAHORE, Dec 26: India on Monday handed over eight prisoners, including a girl, to Pakistan at Wagah border crossing. Pakistan Rangers official said the prisoners’ return was a part of the ongoing peace process between Pakistan and India, adding the prisoners would be interrogated before allowed to return to their families. They said the eight Pakistanis had been in Indian jails for years after being caught on charges of illegal border crossing or overstay in India.

The prisoners were scheduled to be handed over to the Pakistan officials at 11am, but they crossed over the border at around 3pm.

“I cannot explain my feelings. It is just like a new life,” Altaf Shah, 16, a resident of Muzaffargargh, told reporters at the border. He said he was just 12-years-old when he left his parents after his father scolded him over a trivial issue.

He said he arrived in Lahore along with his friends and they were just roaming in a border village near Lahore when he mistakenly crossed over to the other side of the border. He said that torture and mistreatment had been a routine in Indian prisons.

Another prisoner, Muhammad Afzal, 48, said he had visited his relatives in India some five years ago, adding he had gone to the occupied Kashmir to condole the death of a relative. Upon returning to India, he said, he was caught on charges of illegal entry. “I did not know that I had visa to visit only one city. I thought that I was allowed to visit any city once I was inside India,” he said.