Over 200 Pakistanis still imprisoned in Afghan jails
Pakistan Times National News Desk

ISLAMABAD: More than 200 Pakistanis are yet to be released by Kabul, which has earlier announced that almost all the Pakistani prisoners have been set free, 'The Nation' reported on Sunday quoting diplomatic sources.

The Afghan government had set free 368 Pakistani detainees in September last year, who, it said, were the last of more than 2,500 Pakistanis captured during the overthrow of Taliban in 2001.

However, according to sources, over 200 Pakistanis are still in the custody of Afghan warlords in different parts of the country. These influential warlords have often proved too strong for the writ of central Afghan government led by President Hamid Karzai, the sources said.

President Karzai is of the strong desire to establish strong ties with Pakistan but some leaders of Northern Alliance have always created hurdles in his way, they said.

A source said that responding to Islamabad’s recent demand of sending details of remaining Pakistani prisoners, Afghan government has acknowledged that only 45 detainees are yet to be set free but their actual number is far higher.

Prison of Rashid Dostum

The sources said that dozens of Pakistani prisoners died in notorious Shibarghan prison of Abdul Rashid Dostum. Dostum himself admits that 200 prisoners died in Shibarghan Jail but mostly of wounds suffered in the fighting, disease, suffocation and suicide, they added.

It is expected that Islamabad would soon raise the issue of its remaining detainees at higher level with Kabul so that the matter could be resolved once and for all, they said.

However, the sources said that keeping in view the waywardness of Afghan warlords and their resort to independent course of action at times, any immediate breakthrough on the prisoners’ release is unlikely.●