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KARACHI, Sept 21: Oblivious to the overwhelming stench of cow dung, rotting fish and sewage, Mai Aasi waits as she has done for 14 years for the return of two sons and her daughter’s husband from an Indian jail.
Hundreds of other impoverished homes along the Arabian Sea coast were filled with joy this month following a mass release of prisoners by New Delhi and Islamabad, most of them fishermen who had strayed across disputed international maritime borders.
Living on the edge of the city, in a tiny bamboo shack amid the teeming fishing community of Ibrahim Hyderi, Aasi, 70, feels no such happiness as she prays for the freedom of sons Siddiq and Achir Mullah and son-in-law Hussain.
“I don’t remember the month or day when they were arrested and I have now left it to God to reunite me with them,” says the old woman as she leans back on the floor of the hovel where she lives with her youngest son, daughter and grandchildren.
Before the men disappeared the family owned two boats. Now they live in squalor, barely able to afford the monthly rent of 500 rupees or cook a proper meal each day.
Frail and losing her sight, Aasi’s hopes are kept alive by letters from Achir saved in a small metal trunk to protect them from the pervasive humidity.
“We keep writing regularly just to let you know we are alive. Keep on praying for our release,” Achir wrote in a letter dated June 4 this year, in which he complains of never getting replies.
India and Pakistan regularly catch droves of fishermen who cross maritime boundaries.
But they let many more go, according to Lieutenant-Commander Atiq-ur-Rehman of the Pakistan Maritime Security Services.
“Normally when they stray into our waters we warn them to go back. We don’t arrest them unless they come well into our exclusive economic zone (EEZ),” Atiq said, referring to an area that extends 200 nautical miles offshore.
“We know most of them are poor daily wage earners.”
The unlucky ones are jailed without any trial or recourse to legal aid, and routinely accused of smuggling or of working for rival intelligence services, even though many are mere boys.
Sami Memon of the Pakistan Fishermen Forum, a cooperative body which looks after the welfare and rights of some three million fishermen, said they were constantly fighting for the release of those imprisoned in India.
CHANGING TIDE: According to Sami there have been some cases where Pakistani and Indian patrols have crossed into each other’s waters to snatch a fishing boat in retaliation.
“This happens when relations are not good.”
At present, South Asia’s nuclear rivals, which have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, are full of goodwill gestures to nurture a peace process begun in January 2004.
On Sept. 12, the two sides swapped hundreds of prisoners at the Wagah border post, between Lahore and Amritsar.
Just 12 years old, but looking older, Rasool Baksh was among 40 fortunate fishermen who returned home this month to the fishing village of Thatta after spending a year in an Indian jail.
Despite the ordeal the boy insisted he would go back to sea to make his living, just as generations of his family had done.
The first thing he and his mates did after alighting from the bus into the arms of relatives and friends in Thatta was to raise chants of “Pakistan Zindabad!”(long live Pakistan).
Haroon Hussain Dabl, 71, has spent most of his life working for thekidars, as boat owners are called.
“Ten years ago I used to spend up to two weeks out in the deep sea, risking my life to earn 150 to 200 rupees a day. Today the fishermen earn around 300 per day.” — Reuters
