Sapan News The Government of Pakistan has signed the release of 200 Indian fishermen from its prisons on Thursday, May 4 as a ‘goodwill gesture,’ while 400 more will be released by May 14. The development comes as Pakistan’s foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Goa from May 4-5.
The repatriation campaign was launched on May 1, by Rabiya Javeri Agha, the chairperson of the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR), which highlighted their ordeal.
Earlier, a coalition of organisations representing the community had appealed to the governments of both countries to release the incarcerated men as a humanitarian act. “Close to 750 fisher prisoners in total are languishing in the jails of both India and Pakistan, after they were arrested outside the territorial waters of their country of origin”, the coalition had said in a letter to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India.
The coalition also held press conferences simultaneously in Lahore and Ahmedabad to highlight the cause, attended by several affected families of incarcerated fisherfolk.
Rights organisations and activists on both sides have welcomed the latest development and hope that this will help thaw tense relations between the two countries.
Read more at 600 Indian Fishermen Will Find Their Way Back Home This Month by Xari Jalil & Ahmed Saeed, VoicePk.net, 4 May 2023
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