|
Home>News Center>World | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Pakistan likely to free 900 Indian fishermen, civilians
Pakistan is likely to release more than 900 Indian fishermen and civilians held for illegal entry in a goodwill gesture to boost the peace process between the nuclear rivals, officials said.
President Pervez Musharraf has recommended that 800 Indian fishermen held in Pakistani jails for crossing into its waters should be freed after completing legal formalities, foreign ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani told AFP on Wednesday.
Musharraf has also ordered the release of 31 Indian Sikhs after an appeal by visiting communist leaders from the neighbouring South Asian country, Jilani said.
In addition to the Sikhs and the fishermen, another 118 detained Indian civilians are to be released "on humanitarian grounds" once the Indian government confirms their nationalities and travel documents, Jilani added.
"Pakistan has decided not to keep those Indian nationals who have completed their prison terms here and prolong their misery. They should be released on humanitarian grounds," Jilani said.
Pakistan and India have a history of bitter relations and have fought three wars in the last half century, but have been pushing forward with a tentative peace process since January 2004.
One sore point between India and Pakistan has been the frequent detention of each other's fishermen for allegedly straying into their rivals waters in the Arabian Sea.
On Sunday Pakistani coastguards arrested 101 Indian mariners. However in January Pakistan freed 266 Indian fishermen and both countries have made other mass releases in the past.
The Sikhs are to be freed after Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Harkishan Singh Surjeet and Communist Party of India chief A.B. Bardhan called on the President and discussed the issue on Tuesday.
The foreign ministry spokesman said the detainees had crossed into Pakistan from Iran without any legal documents. He did not say when the Sikhs were arrested or explain why they had been in Iran.
Musharraf appreciated the Indian leftwingers's support for the peace dialogue between the two countries, Pakistan's foreign ministry said in a statement overnight.
New Delhi and Islamabad have made a series of peace gestures towards each other in recent years, restoring severed road, rail and air links as well as sporting ties.
Pakistan's cricket team this week began their first tour across the border for six years, and last month the two sides agreed to start a historic bus service between their zones of the divided Himalayan territory of Kashmir. |
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
