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India demands release of prisoner held in Pakistan
New Delhi has demanded Islamabad should immediately free Indian national Hamid Nehal Ansari, set to complete a three-year prison term on Saturday.
New Delhi has demanded Islamabad should immediately free Indian national Hamid Nehal Ansari, set to complete a three-year prison term on Saturday, amid concerns about the prolonged incarceration and ill-treatment of other 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 had 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 had shown “no consideration” for Ansari’s pre-trial custody or provided information on charges levelled against him. The people cited above said there had been no Pakistani response to more than 90 requests by India for consular access to Ansari, and this was 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 had completed their sentences and their identities confirmed by Indian officials, the people said. “There is no business for these Indian nationals to be in jail for even a day longer,” one person said.
There were also two instances in recent months of Pakistan not informing India of the deaths of two prisoners – a fisherman and a civilian, the people said. It took weeks for their bodies to be repatriated, they said.
“In one case, we found out about the death of a prisoner after a month, and in the other, we found out three months later. In these cases, we learnt of the deaths from activists who work with prisoners and only later was there confirmation by Pakistani authorities,” a 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. It issued the direction after hearing an appeal filed by Ansari through his lawyer, which said the government has not taken any steps for his release.
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, the Peshawar high court was informed 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 hadn’t completed requirements for his deportation. An officer of Pakistan’s interior ministry then informed the court a prisoner could be held for up to a month while documents are prepared for his release.
More than 470 Indians, including 418 fishermen, are currently detained in Pakistani jails, according to an official report. About 357 Pakistanis are currently in Indian jails.
The India-Pakistan Judicial Committee on Prisoners, formed in 2007 with four retired judges from each side, has not met since October 2013. In March, the two countries had agreed on measures to speed up the release of four types of prisoners – juveniles, mentally ill, senior citizens and women – and visits to jails by the judicial committee. However, there has been no forward movement, the people said.
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 that their families, lawyers and activists could work for their release.
“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.
