The Sindh High Court (SHC), on a petition of Ansar Burney Advocate, has directed the Deputy Attorney General (DAG) to submit the list of Pakistani prisoners missing from the Indian prisons.
The SHC double bench comprising Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah and Justice Zulfiqar Ahmed Khan ordered the federal government to file within two weeks, the list of total prisoners which were handed over to the Indian High Commissioner and also the list of the prisoners who were exchanged.
Ansar Burney Trust had submitted that major discrepancies were found in the Indian and Pakistani governments’ reports on Pakistani prisoners in Indian prisons, through its Director Shagufta Burney Advocate and Manager Muhammad Danish Ali Advocate. He submitted that as per the federal government, 460 prisoners were detained in Indian prisons while the Indian government maintained that there were only 271 and the rest of the 189 prisoners were missing.
Burney expressed the apprehension that these ‘missing’ people could be misused in terrorism-related activities and requested the court to direct the government to expedite efforts to ascertain the whereabouts of the 189 Pakistani prisoners in the Indian prisons. The petitioner also filed a list of 17 prisoners who had completed their sentences. The verification of these prisoners had been confirmed by the Federal Interior Ministry but they had not been repatriated yet.
Earlier, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had informed the court that a letter had been sent to Pakistan’s High Commissioner in India Abdul Basit on the issue of the missing prisoners. The section officer of the ministry, however, submitted that no information has been received through any complaint or the aggrieved families on the missing of these 189 prisoners.
He submitted that the Pakistani High Commission in India had already taken up the issue with the Indian authorities.