Fishing for trouble

Islamabad on March 6 released 87 Indian fishermen and would free 86 others later this month

Both India and Pakistan keep rounding up fishermen that stray into their territorial waters by accident. The poor folks who go fishing to find a good catch on a sunny day in the Arabian Sea often become the catch themselves at the hands of rival maritime inspectors. That brings them untold hardship and misery as they are carted off to jails, without being told for how long. Their fate seems inexorably linked to the ebb and flow of their respective governments’ bilateral relationship. A thaw in tense state-level bilateral ties often means a batch of these fishermen could be released as a ‘goodwill gesture’.

One such gesture was shown by Islamabad on March 6 as it released 87 Indian fishermen and would free 86 others later this month. The fishermen, who had been languishing in prison for the last two and a half years, were set free from Landhi Jail in Karachi and were to be handed over to Indian authorities at the Wagah border. When they boarded the train to Lahore, the Edhi Foundation, ever so ready to mitigate the suffering of humans without regard to cast, creed or nationality, paid for their travel expenses and handed them gifts and some cash. While this is a good development, one wonders why the travel expenses could not have been borne by the authorities on both sides.

Better sense should prevail in both India and Pakistan and the circus of tit-for-tat actions on the high seas should come to an end. It must be acknowledged that the maritime boundary is poorly defined and the fishermen, with boats lacking the technology to let them know of their precise location, cannot always be expected to remain within their limits and not err. New Delhi and Islamabad need to act sensibly on the matter. Instead of being bogged down by bureaucratic measures, red tape and the general hostility that prevails between the two sides, fishermen should ideally just be warned and sent back to their respective countries whenever they cross international waters inadvertently, instead of being incarcerated in jails. More than anything else, a display of humanity is what is needed in such situations.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 9^th, 2016.

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