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11-05-2021
By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report
THATTA/ ISLAMABAD/ NEW DELHI: Prominent human rights activist and General Secretary of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Zeeshan Ali Khowaja Advocate urged the government of India to release 50 fishermen who had strayed into the waters of the other country and their boats also be released immediately.
Zeeshan Ali Khowaja said that Pakistani government had written a letter to the Indian authorities for the release of 50 fishermen those belonged to Sindh’s Sujawal district languishing in Indian jails and he had been writing letters to the federal government apprising them of the miserable plight of the families of the fishermen.
The families of fishermen are putting up with acute financial constraints as many among these fishermen are sole breadwinners for their families.
PTI Welfare Wing had taken measures to assist the families of ill-fated fishermen who were apprehended in high seas when they were on board to earn a livelihood. The Indian government released 20 fishermen last year 13 of them were from district Thatta and Sujawal.
Khowaja urged both governments to expedite the verification process as many prisoners despite having served their jail terms languished in prison as the other country took long to verify their citizenship.
PTI leader Zeeshan Khowaja referred that a group of 19 Pakistani fishermen released from Indian jails reached Karachi Fisheries in November last year those were imprisoned in Indian since 2016.
The fishermen had been handed over to the Pakistani authorities at the Wagah Border from where they arrived in Karachi the following day. One of the fishermen released from the Indian custody has also been admitted to a hospital in Lahore due to coronavirus pandemic.
A large number of relatives of the fishermen and officials of the Fishermen’s Co-operative Society (FCS) turned up at the fisheries to receive them where motional scenes were witnessed when the fishermen met their loved ones after four years.
An Indian official stated on anonymity condition that there were 95 Pakistani fishermen in the Indian jails while India’s response of releasing only a few of the Pakistani fishermen after Pakistan released many Indian fishermen showed lack of compassion of the Indian authorities. “It is like a drop in the ocean”, Zeeshan Ali Khowaja Advocate appealed India that “it’s the tern of PM Modi to issue the order to release all Pakistani fishermen on humanitarian grounds on Eid occasion for good gesture like Pakistan has been showing during Imran Khan’s Administration.
