Pak court gives govt a month to deport jailed Indian
HAMID NEHAL ANSARI WAS HELD IN 2012 AFTER HE ALLEGEDLY ENTERED PAKISTAN TO MEET A WOMAN HE HAD BEFRIENDED ONLINE
NEWDELHI/ISLAMABAD: New Delhi has demanded Islamabad should immediately free Indian national Hamid Nehal Ansari who is set to complete a three-year prison term on Saturday, amid concerns about the prolonged incarceration and ill-treatment of prisoners in Pakistani jails.
Ansari, arrested in 2012 after he allegedly entered northwest Pakistan illegally to meet a woman he befriended online, was tried by a military court on charges of espionage and given a three-year sentence in December 2015. Legal experts have argued the 33-year-old should have been freed earlier as he had already been in prison for three years at the time of his sentencing.
The external affairs ministry sent a note verbale or formal communication to Pakistan on December 11 expressing “serious concern” that Indian officials have not been granted consular access to Ansari, and seeking his immediate release after completion of his sentence, people familiar with developments said.
The note verbale further said Pakistan has shown “no consideration” for Ansari’s pre-trial custody nor provided information on charges levelled against him.
The people cited above said there has been no Pakistani response to more than 90 requests by India for consular access to Ansari, and that this is a violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
There are at least 11 other Indian prisoners in Pakistani jails who haven’t been released after they completed their sentences and their identities were confirmed by Indian officials, the people said.
There were also two instances in recent months of Pakistan not informing India of the death of two prisoners – a fisherman and another civilian, the people familiar with the matter added. It took weeks for their bodies to be repatriated, they said. “In these cases, we learnt of the deaths from activists who work with prisoners and only later was there confirmation by Pakistani authorities,” the first person said.
In a related development, a two-judge bench of the Peshawar high court on Thursday gave Pakistani authorities a month to complete formalities for Ansari’s repatriation. There was no trace of Ansari after he was taken into custody by intelligence agencies at Kohat in Khyber-pakhtunkhwa in 2012. Only after his mother, Fauzia Ansari, filed a habeas corpus petition through Pakistani lawyers, was the Peshawar high court informed that he was in the Pakistan Army’s custody. At Thursday’s hearing, the bench questioned the additional attorney general how Ansari could be held after completion of his term. The judges also questioned why the government hasn’t completed requirements for his deportation. An officer of Pakistan’s interior ministry then informed the court that a prisoner could be held for up to a month after the term while documents are prepared for his release.
More than 470 Indians are currently detained in Pakistani jails, according to an official report. About 357 Pakistanis are currently in Indian jails. The IndiaPakistan Judicial Committee on Prisoners, formed in 2007, has not met since October 2013.
Ravi Nitesh, founder of the Aaghaz-e-dosti initiative that has highlighted the issue of prisoners in jails of both countries, said India and Pakistan should make public the complete list of prisoners so. “The case of fishermen should be handled under UN laws and they should be freed immediately after their capture at sea with their boats. Prisoners shouldn’t be unnecessarily detained because of bureaucratic delays over confirmation of identity. There should be an agreement to avoid such delays,” he said.