Troubled waters: Pakistani fishermen fear reprisals

Think their peers imprisoned in India may face harsher treatment following Sarabjit’s death.

KARACHI:

Dressed in rugged shalwar kameez, busy loading ice blocks for their next voyage into sea, the fishermen at the Karachi Fish Harbour are troubled with only one thought.

What Sarabjit Singh’s death means for the Pakistani fishermen?

They might not have been out to the fishery for months but the news of the Indian spy’s death in the Kot Lakhpat Jail has reached them. And since then, the question has been troubling them.

“The Indians will take revenge of Sarabjit Singh’s murder from Pakistan fishermen inside Indian prisons,” says 40-year-old Syed Rehman, captain of a boat preparing to set sail.

“Their Navy will also intensify their sea patrols and try to confiscate our boats and fishermen even if they enter into the Indian waters by mistake,” adds Rehman.

The fisherman, who has spent the last 25 years on the coasts of the Arabian Sea, accuses the government of negligence. “Keeping in mind the nature of his crime, the government should have provided Sarabjit complete security. It was the government’s responsibility to hang him according to the court’s orders,” Rehman contends.

“But what happened with him has been totally unjust and a result of jailers’ negligence,” he said.

The question doesn’t restrict itself to only one boat at the harbour; other fishermen too fear the same consequences.

According to Mehboob Baloch, another fisherman, the usual response of the Indian Navy after the Pakistani army uses force against Indian fishermen is almost always the same.

Sitting in the congested cabin of his boat the 37-year old Baloch recalls the time when ears of around 20 Pakistani fishermen were cut in reaction to an incident of forced circumcision of Indian fishermen in Pakistan.

“We usually avoid going towards the Indian side for fear of being arrested by the Indian Navy but sometimes we deliberately enter their waters to get the tiger prawns.”

For Haji Jamshed, however, Sarabajit Singh was lucky enough since his body was handed back to his family. “We are a Muslim nation and kindhearted. What the Indians did to Pakistani prisoner Ajmal Qasab was brutal. They captured the innocent man labelling him a terrorist; he was tortured and later hanged. The two governments should not use the poor people as fuel for their war,” said the owner of a fishing trawler.

Condemning Singh’s killing Jamshed requested both the governments to provide better security on humanitarian grounds to prisoners.

Despite the border differences the fishermen share a unique bond between themselves. “The Indian fishermen are poor men with no clothes. We offer them our old clothes and in return they present us with coconuts,” said Waddera, a regular visitor to the Indian waters for fishing prawn and white pomfret.

But following the incident he too says that it is best to stay away from the Indian waters for some time. “We will fish near Balochistan coast until the Singh’s issue gets forgotten,” he says.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 4^th, 2013.