Kashmir Singh Zindabad: When You Visit India Mr. Ansar Burney.....

When was the last time the Pakistani prisoners received this kind of press? - t

48 Pakistani nationals still languishing in Punjab jails

By ASIT JOLLY

Chandigarh, March 6: Lost amidst the din generated around the release and repatriation of Kashmir Singh after 35 years on death row in Pakistan, as many as 48 Pakistani citizens continue to languish in jails across Indian Punjab even after completing their prison terms.

Their lives caught inextricably in the red tape that has long characterised bureaucracies on both sides of the international border, many of the wretched convicts have not even been granted consular access, which is mandatory under international conventions that both Pakistan and India are signatory to.

60-year-old Mukhtiar Ahmad of Kasur has spent 17 years in prisons across India and is currently awaiting repatriation at Amritsar's high-security central jail. It has been an incredulous nine years since the Pakistani completed his sentence and there is still no sign of the freedom he yearns for.

Lahore resident Akbar Ali is similarly without hope in his desolate life inside Amritsar Jail.

No one even ponders the prospect of his return to Pakistan because the period of his extra stay is "barely 16 months" since completing sentence in November 2006.

And then there are others like the 65-year-old Shukra Ghosh, a once feisty Bengali woman, who is completely forlorn because the authorities have been unable to ascertain her nationality. Unfortunately, they have refused to take her word that she is Pakistani on both sides of the border. Shukra Ghosh is seven years overdue for release.