Accessibility links

Breaking News

Pakistan to Release 360 Indian Prisoners


FILE - Pakistan security officials surround a central jail in Bannu, 170 kilometers south of Peshawar.
FILE - Pakistan security officials surround a central jail in Bannu, 170 kilometers south of Peshawar.

Pakistan will release 360 Indian prisoners this month, the foreign office said Friday, as the nuclear-armed neighbors scale back from a confrontation that prompted world powers to urge restraint.

Tension has been running high since a suicide car bombing by Pakistan-based militants in Indian-controlled Kashmir killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police on Feb. 14, but the risk of conflict rose dramatically on Feb. 27, when India launched an airstrike on what it said was a militant training base.

The following day, Pakistan shot down an Indian fighter jet and captured its pilot, who was later released.

"Pakistan has decided that 360 Indian prisoners [355 fishermen and five civilians] who have completed their term of sentence will be released," Mohammad Faisal, spokesman for the Pakistan Foreign Office, told reporters.

He said the prisoners would be released in four batches starting April 8.

Because of the rocky relations between the two sides, prisoners who have completed their jail terms often languish in jail for months if not years afterward.

According to the lists exchanged by both sides in January, there are 347 Pakistani prisoners in Indian jails, 249 of whom are what the spokesman described as civilians and 98 fishermen.

There are 537 Indian prisoners in Pakistani jails, 483 of whom are fishermen.

"We hope that India will reciprocate this," the Foreign Office spokesman said.

  • 16x9 Image

    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

XS
SM
MD
LG