The
process of freeing fishermen as a goodwill gesture may suffer a setback
after an international network confirmed that Indian coastal border
authorities on Monday seized a Pakistani boat—Al-Khair – with 17 crew
members on board for allegedly violating maritime boundaries.
A
spokesman for the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum claims to have received
this information via their international network—World Forum of Fisher
Peoples (WFFP). Despite repeated demands from civil society and human
rights activists of India and Pakistan to resolve trans-boundary issues,
fishermen from both countries continue to get arrested from the open
sea, where they go for livelihood purposes.
The fishermen
were arrested near Kajir Creek, said to be most dangerous for Pakistani
fishermen as they are arrested as soon as their boats reach anywhere
close to it.
The WFFP could not ascertain where these
fishermen were from or when their boat left the local jetty. However, it
is confirmed, the seized boat and crew were brought to Pore Bunder,
India, on Monday morning.
33 Indian fishermen held
The
Maritime Security Agency (MSA) arrested 33 Indian fishermen and seized
five of their boats the other day and handed them over to the Docks
police station in Karachi for legal matters.
The MSA said
that the fishermen were held for violating maritime borders. They
alleged that these boats were found fishing illegally approximately 200
nautical miles inside the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of Pakistan.
The
Indian fishermen had been warned time and again not to indulge in
illegal fishing but they repeatedly come in our EEZ to exploit benefits
of rich fish resources at the mouth of Indus Delta, said the MSA.
The police have lodged an FIR against the said fishermen.
Fisherman’s body arrives
He left his family for the sea almost a decade ago and returned home dead.
The
body of Pakistani fisherman Nawaz Ali Jat, who died in Indian custody
last month, was received by his family amid tears when it arrived in his
hometown at the Rehri Mayan village situated in the outskirts of
Karachi.
He was later laid to rest in Rehri graveyard. His
funeral was attended by close relatives and officials from various
civil society organizations.
Ali breathed his last on
September 8, 2012, at the Civil Hospital, Ahmadabad, Gujarat, India. The
32-year old fisherman had gone missing with three of his relatives in a
devastating cyclone that hit Pakistan’s coastal area in May 1999.
Nawaz
spent 13 years in jail before he expired, while his three relatives are
still languishing in jail.“We were waiting for 13 years to receive him
alive. But to whom we should blame about this,” said Bachal Jat, a
family elder receiving people outside the home on the day of the
funeral.
Nawaz was born to a traditional fishing family
of Ali Jat at an island village called Khobar Creek, off the Kharo Chhan
coastal town of Thatta district.
When the four fishermen
from the same family went missing during the cyclone, the families
shifted to the house of a relative in Dabla Muhalla of Rehri Mayan
village, Karachi in the hope of a better life. They have been living
there since.
Bachal said all the relatives are very much
concerned about the fate of other three persons, who have been
languishing in Indian jail.The deceased’s parents were unable to see his
body because of their deteriorated health condition took away their
sight..
His home village, Khobar creek, once the main
outlet for the River Indus, is now a small island inhabited by a few
families, all of them relatives of the deceased.Nawaz is survived by his
blind parents, a widow, two young children, and five siblings.
