Nationality verification delayed our release, say repatriated fishermen
: “We could have celebrated Diwali and New Year in our homes with our children, if the process of our nationality verification hadn’t taken a long time. The delay forced us to stay in a Pakistani jail for more than 9 months, although we were not criminals,” said Parveen Rathore, one of the 147 repatriated fishermen, on Tuesday, at the Red Cross Building here. He is one of the 147 Indian fishermen, who were released from Malir a Karach jail on Sunday. They were repatriated to India through the Attari-Wagah border on Monday evening. They have been kept at the building of the Red Cross in Amritsar and will leave for Gujarat on Wednesday through a train from the Amritsar railway station.
Most of the fishermen feel that they had to languish in prison because their nationality verification took a long time. “The nationality must be verified within three months. In an age of information technology, it is not an impossible task to identify someone’s nationality within three months,” said Rathore.
He said, “There are still more fishermen in Pakistani jails. They have been waiting for their release for more than a year, for they have not been verified so far. We were caught in March 2017 and released in January. More than 250 fishermen are still imprisoned there.”
Another fisherman, Hira, said, “As there is no fencing demarcation in the Arabian Sea, we totally rely on the GPRS system installed in boats used for fishing, but sometimes it too fails and we cross the border inadvertently.”
Saffy from Gujarat said, “Though volunteers of the Edhi Foundation celebrate Indian festivals among us in the prison, besides giving ₹5,000 and a bagful of clothes and gifts to each of us during our repatriation, and jail authorities treat us in a courteous manner, but weather and drinking water there do not suit some of Indian prisoners. Two fishermen died in imprisonment. Some are also suffering with various deceases.”