KARACHI: The foreign affairs ministry has informed the Sindh High Court (SHC) that 10 Pakistani citizens were serving different sentences, including life terms, in Indian prisons.

The foreign ministry disclosed this in its reply filed before a two-judge bench headed by Justice Muhammad Iqbal Kalhoro, which was seized with a petition seeking directions for the federal government to ensure repatriation of 17 Pakistanis imprisoned in India.

An official of the foreign affairs ministry, Huzefa Khanum, stated in the comments that four out of Pakistani nationals were serving life terms in the prisons of the neighbouring country.

He also stated that seven prisoners had been released from the Indian prisons and were repatriated to the country from 2011 to 2015.

The director submitted that ministry regularly took up the matter with the Pakistani mission in New Delhi and continuously kept pressing the Indian authorities for early release/repatriation of the prisoners who had completed their sentence and whose national status had been confirmed.

The bench disposed of the petition in view of the reply of the ministry of foreign affairs.

The Ansar Burney Trust International, a non-government organisation (NGO), had approached the court, seeking directives for the federal authorities concerned to ensure repatriation of 17 Pakistani incarcerated in the Indian jails.

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2022