KARACHI: Authorities on Thursday released around 200 Indian fishermen from a prison in southern Pakistan, with the detainees expressing joy over their release and calling for improvement in ties between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.
Indian and Pakistani fishermen are routinely detained by both maritime agencies on charges of illegally entering each other’s territorial waters. The nuclear-armed nations’ borders are not clearly defined in the Arabian Sea and many fishing boats lack the technology to steer clear of any intrusion.
Some 198 Indian fishermen were brought from the Landhi prison to the Karachi Cantt railway station on Thursday evening where Faisal Edhi, chairman of the Edhi Foundation charity organization, saw them off with gifts ahead of their journey back home through the Wagah border crossing near the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore.
Expressing joy over his release, Mohsin Qasim, a fisherman from the Indian state of Gujarat who was detained in 2018, said fisher folk routinely got caught due to invisible boundaries in the sea.
“[Land] borders are known, but one cannot see border in the sea,” Qasim said, urging for improvement in bilateral ties.
“If [bilateral] relations are good everyone will benefit. The masses of both countries will be benefited.”
Hameed Suleman, another fisherman from Gujarat, said he was very happy to return home where he would be able to see his daughters after a long time.
“I haven’t seen the faces of my daughters for the last three, four years,” he said, with a smile on his face. “I will be very happy when I meet my daughters.”
Pakistan was to originally release 200 Indian fishermen, however, two of them died this month owing to their health conditions.
Edhi said bodies of the deceased Indian fishermen were kept at the Edhi morgue and the process to transport them was underway.
“We will take them to Wagah as soon as we get permission,” he said.
Edhi said another 300 Indian fishermen were expected to be released soon and urged New Delhi to release around 200 Pakistani fishermen detained at Indian prisons.