Summary:
Mohammad Amzad, a Pakistani prisoner, died in Guru Nanak Dev Hospital in Amritsar, following prolonged illness on March 7, while another Pakistani prisoner Mohammed Anin Chaudhary, a fisherman, died in an Ahmedabad civil hospital during treatment on March 4. If the identities of prisoners were confirmed, then no country could deny to accept the body of its prisoner, he added. “The civil society should also come forward and raise the issue,” he opined. “Besides verification of their antecedents, their health should be monitored at the earliest,” he suggested.Advocate Umair Ahmad, executive director, Youth for Human Rights, Toba Tek Singh, near Lahore, Pakistan, said, “We can’t even realize the conditions in which Indian and Pakistani prisoners actually stay in other country’s cells. On the same day, Indian prisoner Bhika Bhagwan, a fisherman, died in a Karachi hospital.He also suggested that both the nations should send a team of doctors to the other country to check health condition of prisoners of their country.Expressing concern over delay in repatriation of prisoners’ bodies, Ravi Nitesh, founder member of Aaghaz-e-dosti, an Indo-Pak peace initiative, said there was an urgent need to revive Indo-Pak Joint Judicial Committee and verification of identities of prisoners lodged in jails of respective nations..