India asks Pakistan to free 395 Indians lodged in Pak jails

"The Ministry of External Affairs conveys its deep concern over the long pending release and repatriation of Indian prisoners held under Pakistan custody despite completion of sentence and nationality confirmation. The esteemed High Commission is requested to make immediate necessary arrangements for the immediate release and repatriation of ten Indian civilian prisoners lodged in Pakistan jails," an official source said here.

The 10 individuals are Babli Bhai, Jaspal, Mohammad Ismail, Musharraf Ali, Shoaib, Shamshuddin Alam, Vahid Khan, Muhammad Kousar, Ghulam Farid and Tilak Raj.

Five others - Kaldeep Singh, Kaldeep Kumar, Mahinder Singh, Dharam Singh and Shambhu Nath lodged in Pakistan jails have been confirmed to be Indian nationals.

"It has been requested that necessary arrangements may be made for their early release and repatriation," the source said.

Further, there are 385 Indian fishermen, whose nationality has been confirmed and conveyed to the Government of Pakistan and who have been languishing in Pakistan jails despite completing their sentence/s. It is requested that urgent and concrete steps be taken to repatriate them to India at the earliest, along with their boats. The list of 385 fishermen too have been enclosed.

Sources said the Government of India has been providing consular access in a timely manner to esteemed High Commission officials to their prisoners in India.

However, consular access to Indian fishermen and prisoners in Pakistan jails is inordinately delayed.

Such delays cause avoidable delay in confirmation of their nationality and thus detrimental to timely release of prisoners and fishermen. In this context, it is again informed that consular access for 5 civilian prisoners is still pending at Pakistan’s end, sources said.