LAHORE – India will release 11 Pakistani prisoners who served their sentence as a goodwill gesture, here on Monday (today).
The release comes days after Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif met his Indian counterpart informally on the margins of the SCO summit and is pivotal in the backdrop of death sentence awarded to RAW agent Kulbhushan Jadhav by Pakistani military courts in April.
Last week, India had released two children, Ali Reza and Babar who claimed they had accidentally crossed the international border in Punjab along with their uncle Mohammed Shahzad who is still in India’s custody.
The children were to be released in April but Indian authorities delayed the release after Pakistan announced the death sentence to Jadhav.
Indian officials said the release of prisoners was a humanitarian issue and should not be linked to further turmoil in ties over Jadhav. The Modi regime hopes that Islamabad, too, would facilitate the release of Indian prisoners lodged in Pakistani jails.
According to the government, there are 132 Indian prisoners in Pakistan out of which 57 have already served their jail term. Pakistan maintains that India had to confirm their nationality before it releases them.
It bears mentioning that the nuclear-armed neighbours are facing each other at the UN’s judicial organ over the RAW agent Kulbhushan Jadhav’s case who’s death sentence was stayed by the court in May.
