Pakistan releases 147 Indian fishermen as goodwill gesture

KARACHI: As many as 147 Indian fishermen who were caught for violating Pakistan’s maritime border were released from the city’s Malir prison on Sunday.

The fishermen will board a Lahore-bound train at the Cantonment Station at 2:00pm for their repatriation via Wagah border.

On January 1, with the start of the new year, Pakistan and India exchanged lists of their nationals, including fishermen, languishing in each other’s prisons.

The Foreign Office said that a list containing the names of 457 Indian inmates incarcerated in Pakistan’s prisons was provided to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad. Of the total, 399 are fishermen while 58 are common citizens.

It announced that Pakistan will be releasing 147 fishermen on Jan 07 as a gesture of goodwill.

The gesture comes at a time when there are strains in the relationship between India and Pakistan. The heavily militarized Line of Control (LoC), dividing the disputed Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir between the two countries, so often witnessed skirmishes and ceasefire violations last year.

India breached the ceasefire on the LoC and Working Boundary on more than 1300 occasions in 2017 alone, which led to over 50 civilian casualties and more than two hundred others sustained injuries.