NEW DELHI, Sept 2: India’s Supreme Court has asked the federal government to furnish details about the whereabouts of 11 Pakistani prisoners who are in Indian jails despite serving their sentences, local media reported.

The court is seeking a reply by September 18, the Press Trust of India (PTI) said.

The deadline was set by a two-member bench comprising Justice M B Shah and Justice A R Lakshmanan on Tuesday.

On August 21, the Supreme Court ordered federal authorities to free jailed Pakistani nationals who had already served their sentences and set September 2 as the deadline for New Delhi to pass “appropriate orders”.

The court issued the deadline to the federal authorities after Attorney-General Soli J Sorabjee asked for two weeks in which to file a response to the August 21 court ruling.

The court had also ordered the “deportation of those Pakistani prisoners who have served out their sentence in India and are not detained under any orders passed under the Foreigners Act.”

The court’s rulings follow an appeal filed to India’s highest court by 11 Pakistani nationals held in various Indian prisons.

Last month, India sent back to Pakistan a 13-year-old Pakistani Munir Ahmed who had accidentally strayed across the common border into India’s northwestern state of Rajasthan on June 26.—AFP