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print versionPakistan India Peoples’ Forum for Peace & Democracy welcomes the gesture of Pakistan Government which has released 80 Indian fish workers, who have been in Pakistan jails for past few years. We thank the Pakistan Government for this act, right before Diwali, so that the fish workers can join their families for the festivities.
Pakistan and India has been regularly arresting fishers who cross the oceanic boundaries and trespass into the other country’s waters, for past many years. In 2008, both countries signed an Agreement on Consular Access making it mandatory that consular access was to be given to the arrested fishers, other civilians and that they would be released upon completion of their sentence and nationality verification. The Agreement explicitly states that consular access should be given within 3 months to arrested persons, though unfortunately it does not prescribe a fixed time period for nationality verification. However, both countries have not done their best to implement the agreement and as a result the jailed fishers have been rotting in each other’s prisons.
Particularly in the past few years, the number of fishers in jails have been on the rise due to reduced number of releases. Finally the Pakistan government started releasing fishers in large numbers, almost 478 fishers released in 2023, compelling Indian government to reciprocate. So far the percentile release from both sides have been hardly balanced with Pakistan having released close to 77-80% of jailed fishers and India still having done only about 12-15%. PIPFPD demands Government of India to release the Pakistani fisher and civilian prisoners, who have served their jail term and whose nationality verification has been completed, with immediate effect.
The role of fisher organisations and civil society groups in campaigning for the release of fishers has been noteworthy. However, it is the powerful interventions by the National Commission of Human Rights (NCHR, Pakistan) that made real impacts and led to the securing of the release of the prisoners. It is unfortunate to note that, unlike it’s counterpart in Pakistan, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC, India), has refused to act on the pleas by families of the arrested people and the demands from civic organisations, including NFF and PIPFPD. We thank the Chairperson of the NCHR, Pakistan, Ms. Rabiya Jhaveri Agha, for her missionary zeal and tremendous humanitarian intervention that led to the freedom of hundreds of fisher and civilian prisoners.
Unfortunate as it is, due to the non-release of these prisoners, in 2023 alone, 3 Indian prisoners have died in Pakistani prisons. Except in one case, even the handing over of the mortal remains of the dead person has taken months. This is extreme cruelty being done to the fisher families and disrespect to the departed to deal with their mortal remains like this.
We demand that the Governments of India and Pakistan release all the languishing fisher and civilian prisoners from their respective jails. Pakistan was to release 100 more prisoners in July 2023, which got deferred unfortunately. We also demand that negotiations be undertaken to end this regime of fisher arrest at sea. PIPFPD and many other organisations have clearly pointed to remedial measures in the past, which should be immediately considered and acted upon. Not another fisher or civilian prisoner should be left to die in a foreign prison, for no fault of theirs.
On behalf of PIPFPD and the fisher release campaign,
Jatin Desai & Vijayan MJ
