MUZAFFARABAD, April 16: Two Kashmiris, arrested from the southern district of Kotli in Azad Kashmir in an unexpected raid and taken across the Line of Control by Indian troops about four years ago, were released by Indian authorities along with 22 others earlier this week.

Haji Sharif and Salah Mohammad were herding cattle along the LoC when Indian troops had captured them. Their relatives had been running from pillar to post all this while to secure their release but in vain.

“My father is neither an army man nor a militant. He is simply a farmer who was arrested without justification. It took us four years to see him back in the family,” said Haji Sharif’s son, Mushtaq Ahmed.

The case of Mr Sharif, 58, and Mr Mohammad, 48, is not a unique one. There are several others who were captured by the Indian forces while they were cutting fodder or grazing cattle along the LoC. Perhaps some of them had walked past the unmarked LoC due to ignorance and subsequently landed in Indian jails.

Raja Farooq Khan, who is currently lodged in a Rajasthan prison, was arrested by the Indian troops in 1995 when he had unintentionally walked across the LoC.

Saeed ur Rehman Siddiqui, chief coordinator of local NGO, Press for Peace, told Dawn that there were more than 40 AJK nationals languishing in different prisons in India or occupied Kashmir. The NGO has collected details about them and taken up the issue of their release with various authorities. The ongoing peace process between India and Pakistan has also rekindled the hopes of their families.

“My son is languishing in their custody for the past 12 years but now I hope the ongoing peace process will lead to his release,” said Shahpal Hussain Kazmi, whose son Sajid Ali is currently in an Utter Pradesh jail.

Mr Siddiqui said some of the detainees had intentionally sneaked into the Indian held territory to fight the Indian forces and were caught. “But even those detainees have completed their sentence. Ironically the Indian government is not ready to release them in accordance with the judgements of its own courts,” he said, citing over a dozen such cases.

“It’s because of the efforts of the two leaders (of Pakistan and India) that families separated for nearly 60 years have met in Muzaffarabad and Srinagar. We hope they would free guiltless prisoners also,” he said.

On Saturday, AJK Prime Minister Sardar Sikandar Hayat also wrote a letter to Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, asking him to take up the case of such detainees with Indian authorities.