PESHAWAR, Sept 4: A group of Pakistani prisoners of war arrived from Kabul on Wednesday amid tight security.

A police official confirmed that 55 prisoners had been brought back on a special flight from Kabul and were shifted to Peshawar central jail.

Tight security measures were taken outside the military airbase where the plane landed and even the official media teams were not allowed to enter the premises and interact with the prisoners released from Afghanistan. Officials said another batch of prisoners was likely to return on Thursday.

A spokesman for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan told Dawn that about 1,000 Pakistanis were still languishing  in jails in northern Afghanistan while the number of Afghan nationals in NWFP prisons was 427, including 30 children. The government has agreed to release some of the Afghans soon.

The release of the PoWs started in the wake of visit of President Gen Pervez Musharraf in April to Afghanistan.   Afghan Foreign Minister Dr Abdullah Abdullah during his recent visit to Islamabad stated that more prisoners would be released.

Over 7,000 people had crossed the Afghan border in October. They went there on the appeal of Sufi Mohammad, chief of the defunct Tanzim Nifaz-i-Shariat Muhammadi, to fight alongside the Taliban.