India and Pakistan must seize the moment to turn a crisis into an opportunity that would prevent their strained relations from reaching a breaking point.
This is admittedly a tall order given the barrage of mutual recriminations that have followed the gruesome assault on Sarabjit Singh in a Lahore jail and on Sanaullah Ranjay, a Pakistani national, in a jail in Jammu. But that is no reason why their governments should not sit across the table to discuss ways and means to avoid the repetition of such horrific acts.
New Delhi has indeed sought a meeting of the concerned authorities from both sides to devise measures that would ensure the safety, security and humane treatment of prisoners held in each other`s jails. A response from Islamabad should come as soon as a newly elected government assumes office a few days from now.
Neither of them need to look far to find a mechanism to address the plight of the prisoners. For the past six years, the India-Pakistan Judicial Committee on Prisoners, whose members include six retired judges from the two sides, has been visiting jails in both countries.
Its detailed recommendations to treat prisoners - some 535 Indians (including 483 fishermen) in Pakistan and 270 Pakistanis in India - in a humane manner have been presented to their respective governments.
These include identification of the nationality of the inmates at the earliest, consular access, visits by family members, sharing of post-mortem reports without delay, quick repatriation of mortal remains to the prisoner`s country of origin and, not least, the prompt release of those who inadvertently crossed borders or have been charged with minor crimes.
As a first step, both governments need to act on these recommendations without loss of time. The Judicial Committee should be vested with the responsibility of monitoring their implementation. One of its important tasks would be to seek the co-operation of civil society groups in India and Pakistan engaged with the issue of prisoners.
The measures they have suggested include the unconditional and immediate release and repatriation of fishermen jailed in the two countries (close to 400), along with their boats which are their only source of livelihood (about 965), rusting in the ports in Karachi and Gujarat. Gestures along these lines would be a significant confidence building measure, enabling the volatile emotions generated by the brutal assaults on Sarabjit and Sanaullah to simmer down.
