NEW DELHI, Aug 4: India’s Supreme Court on Monday heard the appeals of three Pakistani nationals still being held in an Indian-administered Kashmir prison despite serving the sentences awarded to them.

A court bench comprising judges Ruma Pal and P V Reddi said the prisoners must be set free if they had served the full term of their sentences.

“Take them to the Wagah border and let them go to their country,” they said of the only land transit point between the two South Asian rivals, who are engaged in a series of peacemaking measures aimed at mending soured ties.

The apex court decided to hear the appeals of the three Pakistanis after one of them, Noor Mohammed, mailed a petition from his cell in Indian Kashmir to the highest court of the land.

The nature of the offences for which the three had served sentences awarded to them by various lower courts was not immediately known.

But India’s Additional Solicitor-General Altaf Ahmed argued the three cannot be taken to Wagah and simply set free.

“These persons are enemy aliens who have no right to be released even after they have served their sentence,” the government lawyer said in court and added that attempts once made before to free Pakistani prisoners had failed.

“India had approached the authorities in Pakistan to take back their nationals who have served their sentence but the latter refused to take them back. Releasing them at Wagah border will not be easy,” Mr Ahmed argued.

The judges fixed August 13 as the date for a full hearing and legal experts said a verdict in favor of the three would be applicable to all Pakistanis held in Indian prisons after the expiry of their sentences.

The developments came two months after India freed six Pakistanis, including a newspaper worker, who had been detained for more than two years for straying into Indian territory from border villages.

Islamabad, in May, freed 20 Indians as part of confidence-building measures taken in the wake of the growing normalization of ties between India and Pakistan following a 17-month freeze in bilateral relations.

New Delhi says 1,236 Indians including 863 civilians and 54 defence personnel missing since a war with Pakistan in 1965, are in Pakistani jails.—AFP