The nowhere man

Interestingly, the number released by the two governments generally only covers those prisoners who have been provided consular access by the host government and whose national status has been verified by them. The remaining prisoners remain nameless individuals who are facing hardships, and are unable to even meet the high commission staff of theircountry.By the end of 1998, about 635 Pakistanis in Indian jails were provided consular access by the Indian government. Out of these, only 275 have been accepted by Pakistan as its citizens. In additional to the 635, Pakistan estimates that over 516 other Pakistanis are being held in Indian jails.In July 1998, the Indian Home Minister L.K. Advani told the Lok Sabha that a total of 1,368 Indian were being held in Pakistan. Out of them, India has consular access to about 600, and it has so far accepted only 132 as its nationals out of this lot. Both countries question each others8217; numbers, particularly the one relating to the category which lacks consular access.There are several reasons for the confusion: one explanation is that the exact number of prisoners in each other8217;s countries is a closely guarded secret by both the governments. 8220;There is no justification for maintaining such secrecy on these issues because these prisoners do not include the security prisoners,8221; says a spokesman of SPARC.

The otherproblem is that the High Commissions of the two countries find out about the detention of their nationals not through the detainees, as it is not possible for most of them to communicate while in detention, but from the newspapers or through their relatives.

Upon receiving this information, the High Commission then writes a short letter to the foreign ministry of the other country asking for confirmation of arrest and provision of consular access to the prisoner. In most cases, the High Commissions seldom get a response.

Almost every week, citizens of the opposing side are detained for minor offences like over staying their visa period, staying with an expired passport, failing to register on arrival with the police, visiting places other than those allowed in their visa and more importantly, fishing in the territorial waters of the other country. While these are offences, the governments of the two countries continue to punish because the offenders are from the other country; many observers say that ifthey were citizens of another country, such treatment would not be meted out to them.

The tragedy is that while these persons are arrested and fall into the category of under-trial and convicted prisoners, they do not get released even after completing their sentences because their exchange is attempted on a reciprocal basis.

In March 1948, ministers of the two countries for the first time discussed the plight of the prisoners. However, their talks concentrated more on the exchange of Hindu and Muslim prisoners who were left on the wrong side of the border at he time of partition. In Pakistan, these talks were followed by the Pakistan Exchange of Prisoners Ordinance, which laid down the procedure for dealing with such prisoners.

In 1958, in foreign secretary-level talks, it was decided that a list be compiled by both sides allowing for the process of exchange to take place. The leaders of both India and Pakistan acknowledged at that time that this was a humanitarian problem and should be dealt with assoon as possible.But before the two countries could agree to a formal arrangement, war broke out between the two countries on September 1965. This was followed by the 1971 war. After this, Pakistan was more concerned about the plight of its 93,000 prisoners of war to concentrate on the earlier prisoners. It was in 1972 under the Shimla agreement that there was a clause that stated that there would be discussions on the issue of repatriation of POW8217;s and civilian internees.

As a follow up, in 1973, the two sides signed an agreement for this purpose. This agreement dealt with repatriation of Bengalis from Pakistan to Bangladesh, and non-Bengalis who had opted out of Bangladesh to Pakistan. The agreement, however, did not deal with repatriation of Indian prisoners in Pakistan because Pakistan had unilaterally released in 1972 all 617 Indian prisoners being held at the time. India in return released 514 prisoners the same day.

It was only in 1982 that the two governments agreed to extend reciprocal consularservices to nationals of one side detained in the other. The two countries also agreed to draw comprehensive lists of such persons in their country as soon as possible and exchange such lists at regular intervals. India and Pakistan also agreed to discuss modalities of release and repatriation, for persons who were not convicted or those who had completed their sentences.

While the two countries started consular system mechanism in August 1985, since then prisoners have been exchanged sporadically, mostly involving fishermen. In 1986, the two sides agreed to repatriate at the Wagah/Attari border post on a reciprocal basis all civilian detainees who had completed their sentences by March 1996. At this meeting, Pakistan also expressed its resolve to locate Indian defence personnel missing since the 1971 war.

But civilian detainees were not released following the 1986 talks. There was a lull in exchanges till the foreign secretary level talks in 1990, when fishermen were released. This was followed byanother exchange in 1991.The next major exchange took place in 1997 when 195 Pakistani and 194 Indian fishermen were released by both sides. In 1997, the two sides also decided to start with a clean slate and release all civilian prisoners. This was followed by an exchange of fishermen in 1998. At this point, Pakistan again announced its intention to release all Indian civilian internees.

The prisoners are a burden on the jails of the two countries. Also, they are not hardened criminals, who, for no fault of their own, continue to stay in jails despite completing their terms. There are some prisoners who have overstayed for more than a decade. In many cases, these prisoners have gone insane. In others, they have lost hope since their national status has not been recognised by their home government.