A constitutional petition has been lodged with the Sindh High Court regarding the 189 Pakistani prisoners missing from Indian jails as per a report received by the Pakistani authorities.
In its petition, the Ansar Burney Trust requested the court to issue orders to the government and prime minister to expedite their efforts and raise this humanitarian issue with Indian authorities concerned without any further delay to find out the whereabouts of all the missing Pakistani prisoners.
In the petition, the Trust’s counsel submitted that they were shocked at the government and Prime Minister Sharif’s silence and ignorance over this painful report.
The counsel submitted that it was a matter of record that on May 31, 2008, a bilateral Agreement on Consular Access was executed between Pakistan and India under which both the countries, exchanges a detailed list of prisoners of each country lodged in other country’s prisons twice each year ie on January 01 and July 01.
The petitioner argued that in continuation and pursuance of this agreement, on January 01, 2016, both the countries exchanged their respective lists of such prisoners, through diplomatic channels, but a major difference/discrepancy in the Indian list was found, as Pakistani list claimed 460 prisoners lodged in Indian Jails while Indian list confirmed only 271 of Pakistani prisoners.
Reportedly the Pakistani list claims 460 Pakistani prisoners lodged in Indian jails (including 113 fishermen), while the Indian authorities have only acknowledged and confirmed 271 prisoners, (including only 17 fishermen), lodged in their jails, whereas the whereabouts of 189 prisoners is glaringly denied by India.
