Over 700 Indian and 367 Pakistani prisoners currently languishing in jails for lack of better cross-border coordination.
Mohammad Gulzar in Pakistan had almost lost hope of seeing his 70-year-old father, who disappeared in neighboring India hours after being acquitted by a high court in a 2019 terrorism case.
It was only last week when Gulzar received a phone call from an Indian journalist, who informed him that his father is currently languishing in a police station in India’s northern Uttar Pradesh state despite the acquittal.
Gulzar’s father, Mohammad Waris, was arrested in the Shamli district of Uttar Pradesh – India’s most populous state – in 2000 when he went to see an “old friend.”
The police claimed to have recovered “a few guns and hand grenades” from his possession during a raid on the house of his friend, where he was staying.
Hailing from the Wazirabad district of the northeastern Punjab province of Pakistan, Waris, along with his friend Ashfaq Nande and three other persons, was booked on terrorism charges, according to Indian English daily The Times of India.
-AA