KARACHI, March 20: The Sindh government has ordered release of 532 Indian prisoners, four of them illegal entrants and the others fishermen. The freed Indians were on Sunday being taken to Lahore from where they would be escorted to Wahga border before being handed over to the Indian authorities on Monday.

Home Secretary Brig (r) Ghulam Mohammad Mohtaram told PPI on Sunday that the fishermen had been arrested on different occasions by the Maritime Security Agency for violating Pakistan’s territorial waters. He said that the other four Indians had been arrested and jailed for entering Pakistan illegally. “We are releasing 529 fishermen and four other Indian prisoners today after we received orders from President Gen Pervez Musharraf,” the home secretary told AFP, adding that the release was a goodwill gesture to India.

There are some 800 Indian fishermen in Pakistani jails whereas India is holding 108 Pakistani fishermen who are languishing in Indian jails. In January, Pakistan had released 266 Indian fishermen who had already spent more than one year in jail following their arrest for straying into Pakistan’s territorial waters, Brig Mohtaram said.—PPI/AFP