28 Pak prisoners, including two women, go home

Attari, Nov 14(UNI) Twenty-eight Pakistani prisoners, including two women, stuck in Indian jails despite completing their sentences, today crossed over to their homeland at the Attari border here.

However, the process was delayed by a few hours as one Pak inmate travelling from Delhi could not make it today, due to the train traffic blockade by agitating farmers in Punjab.

Of the 28 Pak citizens, 17, including two women Farzana and Seema had come from the transit camp at the central jail, Amritsar, 8 from Jammu, 2 from Rajasthan and one from Gujarat.

They were handed over to Pakistan Rangers by Indian officials in presence of senior Pak High Commission official Ali Asgar, official sources said here today.

The repatriation process was expedited after a local advocate and social activist Ajay Vermani, filed a PIL on behalf of Farzana after getting information through the RTI that 47 Pak prisoners were languishing in Punjab jails even after completing their sentences, due to diplomatic and beaurocratic wrangles.

Farzana was nabbed along with her Delhi-based cousin Mukhtiar Jahan while carrying Rs 98,000 fake Indian currency notes in denomination of 1000 rupees in 2006.

Both completed their sentence of seven months of rigourous imprisonment in November last year. While Mukhtiar was set free to join her family in Delhi, Farzana continued to languish in jail as the consular assessment could not be completed.

The other woman, Seema, was nabbed with her husband for travelling with forged documents, sources said.

Mr Vermani later also filed a contempt of court case against then Punjab Home Secretary B C Gupta, following which the process to release the Pak prisoners was hastened.

UNI XC JN VN1610