The prisoners, belonging to various parts of the country, alighted from a C-130 plane at a PAF base in Peshawar at about 1:30 pm. The prisoners were sent to the city’s central jail as soon as they set foot on the tarmac.
Interestingly, the prisoners told journalists at the air base that they had been detained by the Northern Alliance much before the Sept 11 incident and were kept in a prison in the Panjsher Valley, the stronghold of the slain Afghan commander Ahmad Shah Masood.
Ahmad Ali Afridi, one of the prisoner, said that he had been arrested by the Northern Alliance near Panjsher Valley in early 1996. “I and my colleagues were captured by Masood’s forces when we were fighting along with the Taliban soldiers”.
He stated that a few days ago some 1,000 Pakistani prisoners had been shifted to Kabul Jail from Shaberghan and other parts of Northern Afghanistan. These Pakistanis, he said, had been captured in 1996 and 1997.
“Thousands of Pakistanis are still in detention in Northern Afghanistan,” Afridi said. He added that they had faced “very harsh treatment”.
Ahmad Shah Masood, who was assassinated in his home town on September 9, 2001, had claimed that he held “credible proof” regarding Pakistan army’s involvement in the Taliban-imposed war on Afghanistan after capturing over 700 Pakistan nationals. He had said at that time that most of the detainees were “disguised armymen”.
Islamabad had, however, denied Masood’s charges.
Nineteen of the prisoners brought back from Kabul on Thursday belong to Punjab, 18 belong to the NWFP, 11 to Sindh while seven belong to Balochistan and the tribal areas. Another prisoner named Furqan, who belongs to Karachi, also said that he was arrested in 1996. Some of the prisoners, who have been released, are: Rehmat Ali, Sultan Mohammad, Abdul Malik, residents of Karachi, Abdur Rahim Shekarpur, Salahud Din, Balochistan and Fauj Ali, resident of Rahim Yar Khan.
A source, quoting Afghan charge-de-affairs in Islamabad Mohammad Naeemur Rehman Naeemi, said that Pakistan also released about 40 Afghan prisoners in the past two days to reciprocate Kabul’s good will gesture. The Afghans, he said, had been set free from Karachi and Adiala prisons.
An official of the provincial Home and Tribal Affairs Department confirmed that the interior ministry had released 20 Afghan prisoners on Wednesday.