News
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Indo-Pak Judicial Committee on Prisoners visits Indian jails* Committee will visit Pakistani jails in April
ISLAMABAD: Members of the India-Pakistan Judicial Committee on Prisoners visited Indian jails in Delhi, Jaipur and Amritsar from January 23 to 27, and made several recommendations at the conclusion of the visit.
Committee members, Justice (r) AS Gill and Justice (r) MA Khan, from the Indian side, and Justice (r) Nasir Aslam Zahid and Justice (r) Mian Muhammad Ajmal, from Pakistani side, visited the jails. Around 46 Pakistani prisoners at Central Jail Tihar, New Delhi, 98 at Central Jail, Jaipur and 45 at Central Jail, Amritsar were presented before the committee.
The committee recommended that ‘Consular Access Agreement’ of May 2008 signed by the two governments must be fully implemented. Consular access must be provided within three months of the arrest and repatriation must take place within one month of confirmation of national status and completion of sentences, it added. The body also sought that consular access be provided immediately to all the prisoners who have not been given consular access so far and the process of nationality confirmation should start immediately after consular access is provided.
The committee members said a mechanism should be developed for compassionate and humanitarian consideration to be given to women, juvenile, mentally challenged, elderly and all prisoners suffering from serious illness or permanent physical disability. Serious or terminally and mentally-challenged prisoners must be kept in hospitals irrespective of confirmation of their national status and offence, they added.
The committee noted that the respective courts must be requested for expeditious trial of all “under trial” prisoners, and that provision of legal aid or attorneys to prisoners must be ensured at all stages of their cases.
The committee also endorsed the recommendations of the interior secretary level talks, held on March 28 to 29, 2011 at New Delhi, which urged the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency and Coast Guard of India to work on setting up a mechanism for release of inadvertent crossers (fishermen) and their boats, on the same lines as for inadvertent crossers on land. It was recommended that the fishermen should be repatriated by sea lanes along with their boats. It was suggested that the next visit of the committee to Pakistani jails be arranged during the second half of April this year. The committee will review the action taken on the earlier recommendations when it meets next in Pakistan. app
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk