NewsFriday, March 21, 2008
48 Pakistanis in Indian Punjab jails: Burney
Staff Report
PESAHWAR: Caretaker Human Rights Minister Ansar Burney said on Thursday that 48 Pakistanis were languishing in Indian Punjab jails despite the completion of their prison terms. Around 600 Pakistanis were in Indian jails, Burney told reporters at Darul Itfal, adding that some of them had been in jail for about two decades. He cited “negative propaganda” between India and Pakistan as the reason for the delay in the release of these prisoners. Pakistan has recently released Kashmir Singh, an Indian convicted of spying, after he spent 35 years in jail. A few days after Singh was released, India sent the body of Khalid Mehmood – who had gone to India to watch a cricket match in 2005 but was arrested and denied consular access – back to Pakistan. Burney urged the two countries to stop the “culture of exchanging prisoner bodies”. He also condemned the “inhuman” treatment meted out to Pakistani prisoners in Afghanistan. He urged the Afghan government to treat Pakistani prisoners according to the law. Burney said government’s pressure had kept him from getting sacked chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry released. “How can a person be called free when there are barbed wires around his house and he is not allowed to meet anyone?” Burney said, admitting that Chaudhry was under house arrest. He said that a large number of prisoners had been languishing in Pakistani jails for 10 to 30 years, awaiting decisions on their death sentences. “I have recommended to president that he convert death sentence into life imprisonment for all those prisoners who have spent more than 10 years in jail without being executed,” Burney said.
Courtesy Daily Times