India told to clarify missing inmates issue

ISLAMABAD: The government has sought a clarification from India over a discrepancy in a list of inmates in the neighbouring country in which there is no trace of 99 Pakistani prisoners.

In a written reply to the National Assembly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Indian authorities had handed over the list of 386 prisoners to the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi which included 108 fishermen and 278 other Pakistanis detained in Indian jails.

However, according to the record maintained by the ministry as well as the high commission, there are 485 Pakistani prisoners, including 172 fishermen, in Indian jails.

The Foreign Office said the disparity in the numbers of 99 prisoners had been taken up with Indian authorities.

The list maintained by Pakistan is based on the information received from the media and NGOs and applications received from the relatives of prisoners.

The Foreign Office said there were 491 Indian prisoners in Pakistani jails, of whom two fishermen and seven others had been released. All the prisoners have been provided consular access.

Pakistan released 45 Indian fishermen on May 25, one on June 17 and seven other prisoners on July 9.

An Indian fisherman prisoner died on July 3.

There is a proposal to release another 73 Indian fishermen, while India has not released any Pakistani prisoner and even 31 prisoners who have completed their sentences and whose national status had been confirmed are still languishing in jails.

S. ARABIA: In reply to a question about illegal Pakistanis in Saudi Arabia, the ministry said the Pakistani mission in the kingdom had succeeded in re-integrating 80,000 Pakistanis back into the Saudi mainstream economy. About 110 Saudi companies have started giving them employment. A smaller segment of illegal Pakistanis, who had gone to Saudi Arabia to perform Umra and Haj after July 3, 2008, will have to leave the country under the new laws.

Otherwise, they will be detained and fined heavily on completion of a grace period ending on Nov 3. The ministry said no official figures of Pakistani workers repatriated since the start of the campaign had been conveyed to the Pakistani mission by the local authorities despite the governments requests.