KARACHI: An Indian fisherman passed away in a jail located in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi due to health complications, an official confirmed on Tuesday, making it the fifth foreign inmate to have died in the same prison since November 2022.
Indian and Pakistani fishermen are routinely detained by each other’s governments on charges of violating territorial sovereignty. The two nuclear-armed nations’ borders are not clearly defined in the Arabian Sea and many fishing boats lack the technology needed to be certain of their precise location.
According to Muhammad Arshad, superintendent of Karachi’s Landhi prison, 50-year-old Soma Deva was suffering from a lung and heart disease. The jail official said the inmate’s condition deteriorated over a period of time, adding that he was admitted to a hospital on Monday night where he died.
“He had a heart issue and his lungs had failed but he was given proper treatment both at the jail and the hospital but he passed away,” Arshad told Arab News.
Arshad said Deva was taken to a hospital earlier when his health deteriorated and was shifted back to Malir prison when he recovered.
Deva was one of 50 Indian fishermen remanded to the prison on February 17, 2020, and was convicted on June 16, 2020.
Jatin Desai, an Indian activist who advocates for the release of fishermen, stated that 654 Indian fishermen are languishing in Pakistani jails while 83 Pakistani fishermen are being held in Indian jails.
Arshad revealed that Pakistani authorities are preparing to release around 200 Indian fishermen in the next few days, and the process to release the others had also begun.
Deva’s death has shed light on the condition of jails in Pakistan, where relatives of foreign nationals have often complained the incarcerated often do not receive adequate care.
In February, an Afghan national named Faiz Muhammad, who was arrested for crossing the border into Pakistan without a visa, passed away in the same Landhi jail. Muhammad was diagnosed with hypertension, diabetes, and depression following a severe ear infection.
Taj Muhammad, another Afghan inmate who was detained in January 2022, died nine months later while Abdul Khalil, also an Afghan national, died in December 2022 after being taken into custody in November 2022 in the same Landhi prison.
Wali Khan, a fourth Afghan national who was arrested in November 2022, died in late January 2023.
