Fate keeps two teenage friends together

Bhagwandas

While leaving the Malir prison along with 98 other Indian fishermen for Lahore early Monday morning, two teenagers believed it was their fate that brought and kept them together despite the fact that they had left their village in Junagarh for fishing on different dates.

Sixteen-year-old Mahesh and 17-year-old Jeenti - both hailing from Kotra village of Junagarh district in the Indian state of Gujarat - were sitting next to each other before embarking on one of the two buses arranged for the first batch of Indian fishermen returning to their country when the Dawn team visited them.

The federal Government earlier ordered the release of 442 Indian fishermen, who have completed their terms handed down to them by courts for illegally fishing in territorial waters of Pakistan, in all.

Looking happy on returning home after spending more than eight months in a Karachi jail, Mahesh said that he along with four fishermen - Poonjah, Beekha, Raja and Haresh - had sailed as a matter of routine out of their village jetty on a fishing trip in the second week of December when they strayed into territorial waters of Pakistan.

He said he joined his ancestral profession and started sailing on boats along with other fishermen to support his poor family when he was still a child because his father, Meghjee, had died and his elder brother, Deepak, had a wife and children to support.

Although he could not get education due to poverty, Mahesh remembered that it was “the 12th month and the date was 19th of last year when we were caught (by the personnel of a Pakistani law-enforcement agency) and brought to the city”.

Juvenile jail

Being a minor, Mahesh was kept at the Youthful Offenders Industrial School (commonly known as Juvenile Jail). He found the young prisoners by and large friendly, he said, adding that he was surprised to see his friend, Jeenti, there. In fact, he said, most villagers in Kotra feared that the boat on which Jeenti along with other fishermen sailed out might have capsized and the crew might have drowned.

“I was very amazed to see him alive when I was brought to the juvenile jail,” he recalled. He said his friend, who had been in the jail a couple of weeks before he arrived, was also astounded to find him.

Mahesh said that he and his friend grew up together in the same village. While they landed in the Pakistani jail with a gap of over a couple of weeks, they served out their sentences together, he said, adding that he was happy that they were being released the same day and that they would reach their home together.

The Dawn

Just a year older to Mahesh, Jeenti, too, was found desperate to reach his native town though he said he wished his elder brother, Ramesh, could also have returned with them. He told Dawn that Ramesh was also fisherman like his other two elder brothers and their father, Deva.

His elder brother, Ramesh, was caught while fishing in Pakistani waters and subsequently tried in a court, he said.

The teenaged boy said he had no idea about the fate of Ramesh - when his elder brother would be released.

Narrating his ordeal, Jeenti said that he along with four other fishermen Bekhu, Haresh, Chhagan and Rakesh sailed out of their village off the Gujarat coast in the first week of December 2009.

After sailing westwards for some time, they were catching fish in the sea when the personnel of a Pakistani law enforcement agency arrested them for violating the territorial boundaries, he said, recalling that it was December fourth.

“At first, I was afraid for being in a prison and that too a Pakistani one, but soon I realized that the inmates, all Pakistani naturally, were not as hostile as I had feared,” he said.

Being a minor, Jeenti was not kept with other crew members of his fishing boat and sent kept to the juvenile jail. Just a couple of weeks later as he was coming to terms with the changed environment, he said Mahesh was brought into the prison. His friend’s arrival came as a bolt from the blue for him, he said.

Both the teenagers, however, were uncertain as to when the remaining crew members of their fishing boats would be allowed to return. The boys were full of praise for the NGOs and social workers who secured freedom for them. Despite the fact that they did not know them personally, the human rights activists also arranged phone calls for them to talk to their families in the Junagarh village, the young fishermen said. Accompanied by police personnel, the two friends were among the 100 fishermen who later left the Malir prison on two buses for Lahore.

A large number of civil society members, including retired Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid of the Pakistan-India Judicial Commission, Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum chief Mohammad Ali Shah, Zulfiqar Shah, Shuja Qureshi and Sarafat Ali of the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research, ex-law minister and a former office-bearer of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Iqbal Haider and others – were present at the Malir prison early in the morning to bid farewell to them. They also gifted traditional Ajrak to each fisherman.

The fishermen holding lunch boxes left for Lahore. On their way, they will have a stopover at Bahawalpur for dinner. On Tuesday morning, they would reach Lahore from where they would cross over to India through the Wagah border.

It is worth noting that this was the first batch of the 442 Indian fishermen being released on the order of the federal Government. Other batches will shortly leave the jails. The PFF and PILER had earlier filed a constitutional petition in the Supreme Court of Pakistan seeking the release of Indian fishermen who had served out their sentences.

While the court asked the interior ministry under what law the fishermen who had completed their sentences were in jails, the federal Government ordered the release of 442 out of 456 Indian fishermen after the ministry of foreign affairs informed it that they had no objection if they were released.

Iqbal Haider, whose petition seeking release of Indian fishermen is pending in the Supreme Court, has sought indulgence of the High Commissioner of India for the verification of the Indian nationality of 14 prisoners who have not been released as their nationality has not been confirmed by the Indian HC, adds PPI. The Dawn