Fishing for rights: ‘200 Indian fishermen in Pakistani jails and vice versa’

KARACHI:

Pakistan and India should mark the water boundaries especially in the Kutch areas to avoid arresting fishermen and detaining their boats, former Supreme Court judge Justice (retd) Nasir Aslam Zahid has recommended. “Kutch is where most of the fishermen from both sides of the border are arrested.”

The former judge was speaking at a press conference on Friday after returning from India with a delegation. They went on an invitation from the Indian civil society and Indian Fisher Folk Association. Former senator Iqbal Haider and Karamat Ali of the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research were also part of the team that visited Gujarat, Pune and Mumbai from September 15 to September 22.

According to Iqbal, during their eight-day visit, they met Justice Katju in Delhi along with Indian fishermen. “We also invited social activist Anna Hazare and a labour leader from Mumbai to visit Pakistan,” he said. They said that the fishermen should be treated with respect. “Let justice be done to these poor, faceless and powerless common people of India and Pakistan,” they argued.

The former judge presented a list of solutions and demanded that the detained fishermen should be released immediately.  He added that at this moment there were 200 Indian fishermen in Pakistani jails and vice versa.

“We demand that a mechanism should be set up to ensure that instead of arresting the fishermen and confiscating their boats, the authorities should warn the and push them back to their country,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 24^th,  2011.