Pakistan and India exchanged 435 and 152 prisoners, respectively at a ceremony of prisoners exchange initiative held at the Wagah border on Monday.
The prisoners released from Pakistan include 371 fishermen while those released by Indian side include 51 fishermen, said Minister of State for Interior, Dr Shahzad Waseem while talking to newsmen at the Pakistan side of the border.
Secretary Interior Syed Kamal Shah, Inspector General Police Prisons Punjab Sarfraz Ahmed Mufti and other senior officials from Pakistan while Indian Punjab Assembly Deputy Speaker, Bahadri Lal, Member Parliament Navjot Singh and other senior officials were present at the occasion marked with enthusiasm and friendly feelings.
Journalists from both the sides were given access to talk to guests from both the countries.
Dr Shahzad said that Pakistan took up the matter of releasing the prisoners during composite dialogue with India last month. He said that it was decided during the dialogue that those prisoners would be released, whose national identity had been cleared by authorities in each other country and they had completed their sentence, if convicted by the courts.
The Interior Secretary Kamal Shah said that Pakistan had already released 1,301 Indian prisoners in the year 2004 and 2005 while India released 231 during the same period.
He said that there are more than 500 Pakistani prisoner in Indian jails and of them national status of 291 has been verified by Pakistan.
He said that 'Councillor Access' was not available to the remaining prisoners but India now had agreed to give this access to another 206 prisoners after checking their national status from Pakistan till first week of October next.
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