KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday granted an application filed by Ansar Burney Trust International, seeking an urgent hearing of its petition asking the government to take action against the alleged missing of 189 Pakistani prisoners from Indian jails.
The petitioner, through its counsel filed an application with the SHC requesting the hearing of the cases on urgent basis considering the sensitivity of the matter. The SHC bench, headed by Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, accepted the application and issued notices to the parties to come up on 22nd September 2016.
In the earliest hearing, the SHC had directed the deputy attorney general to submit the list of the prisoners who had been exchanged between both the countries. Earlier, the petitioner had submitted that Pakistan and India exchanged the lists of their prisoners on 1st January 2016 in which the major difference was found in the figures of Pakistani prisoners.
“The Pakistani list claimed that there were 460 prisoners in the Indian jails whereas their list confirmed only 271 prisoners there. This meant that 189 Pakistanis are missing from the Indian jails,” he said. The civil rights campaigner added that he was seriously shocked to see the government’s silence and ignorance on painful reports reflecting missing of a large number of Pakistanis from the Indian prisons.
Citing secretaries of interior and foreign affairs as the respondents, the petitioner prayed to the SHC to take cognizance of the matter and direct the government to inform the court what action have been taken to know the whereabouts of 189 Pakistani prisoners.
