The festival of lights brought good fortune and unprecedented joy to dozens of families in Gujarat’s Somnath District as eighty fishermen from the area, who were recently released from Pakistani jail, returned home and were reunited with their families on the festive occasion of Diwali on Sunday.
Officials said the fishermen, who were released from a jail in Pakistan’s Karachi recently, reached Vadodara in Gujarat by train on Sunday, from where they were taken to Veraval in the state’s Gir Somnath district by bus to be reunited with their families for Diwali.
On Thursday, Pakistani authorities released the fishermen after nearly three years and later handed them over to a team of Gujarat fisheries department at the Attari-Wagah border in Punjab the next day, an official release said.
The Indian fishermen, who were lodged in the Malir Jail in Pakistan’s Karachi, were released by Islamabad under the country’s ongoing drive to expel illegal foreign immigrants and nationals from the country.
They had left the Gujarat coast at regular intervals in 2020 and were held by the maritime forces of Pakistan for allegedly fishing in that country’s waters. Of the 80 fishermen who have been released, 59 are from Gir Somnath district, 15 from Devbhoomi Dwarka, two from Jamnagar, one from Amreli, all in Gujarat, while three are from the Union Territory of Diu, the release said.
“All of them were caught in 2020. About 200 fishermen are still languishing in Pakistani jails. The freed fishermen will be able to celebrate Diwali with their families,” said the release.
In May and June this year, the Pakistan government had released nearly 400 Indian fishermen. Earlier, a senior jail official at Karachi’s Malir Jail said the Indian fishermen were put on the Allama Iqbal Express train under heavy security and will reach Lahore tomorrow from where they will be handed over to Indian authorities at the Wagah border.
Faisal Edhi of the Edhi Welfare Trust, which made arrangements for the Indian fishermen to travel to Lahore, said that the Indian fishermen who were mostly from poor backgrounds were overjoyed to finally be returning home. “They are happy they will be joining their families soon. We have given them cash and other gifts to take home,” he said. Pakistan and India regularly arrest each others’ fishermen for violating the maritime boundary which is poorly marked at some points.