The killings of Indian and Pakistani troops in Kashmir have once again captured the world’s attention, but the victims of a lesser-known border dispute between the two nations are largely forgotten.
In a fly-blown wooden hut in the Pakistani coastal village of Rerhy, at the edge of the vast metropolis of Karachi, Hamida mourns her husband, Nawaz, once a fisherman like those preparing their multicolored boats on the nearby shore.
Nawaz went to sea in 1999, two days before a violent storm struck.
His family thought he was dead, but seven years later they received a letter saying he was alive — in an Indian prison.
Then last autumn Hamida suffered a shuddering blow: Without any warning, her husband’s body was delivered to the village.
The disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir has been the cause of two of the three wars between India and Pakistan since independence from Britain in 1947 and clashes between troops in the region regularly make headlines.
Five soldiers, three Pakistani and two Indian, have been killed in cross-border firing since Jan. 6, threatening the two nuclear-armed countries’ fragile efforts towards lasting peace.
However, the dispute over Sir Creek, a 100km strip of water in marshland dividing the Indian province of Gujarat from the Pakistani province of Sindh, is less well-known.
The creek opens out into the Arabian Sea and is noted for its rich stocks of fish, but fishermen who brave the area are regularly locked up for illegally entering the neighboring country.
Ganesh Kumar was detained by Pakistan in October last year in an Indian boat.
“There were seven of us in the boat and I didn’t know where I was. The man who owned the boat should have known,” the 19-year-old said in Karachi’s Malir jail.
There are more than 200 Indian fishermen in custody in Malir, prison governor Nazir Hussain Shah said.
In India, 125 Pakistani fishermen are imprisoned, India’s National Fishworkers’ Forum secretary Manish Lodhari said.
Syed Sarim Burney, a lawyer who defends some of the Indians in Pakistan, said the fishermen are at the mercy of the authorities.
“They are thrown in jail for years without committing any crime,” he said. “There is no visible sea demarcation between the two countries so the navy of each country can arrest the people of the neighboring country whenever they want.”
The men fish using simple boats with little in the way of modern navigational technology, such as GPS, to help them pinpoint their location, Burney said.
New Delhi and Islamabad have been seeking to improve ties in recent years and fishermen were freed several times last year as “goodwill gestures,” though in October last year, Pakistan seized 33 Indians less than a month after freeing 48.
A joint committee was set up in 2007 to try and speed up the release of fishermen. Once freed, they return home overland under escort — without their boats.
Depleting fish stocks as a result of environmental changes brought about by industrial pollution and the building of dams across the Indus, the great waterway that runs almost the entire length of Pakistan into the Arabian Sea, may also be playing a role in the territorial dispute.
The river’s mangroves, an important ecosystem where fish and shellfish can feed and reproduce, have reduced in area from 300,000 hectares to 70,000 in 30 years, said Mohammad Ali Shah of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum.
As a result, Pakistani fishermen have spread further east, closer to India and disputed waters where they say stocks are more plentiful.
Hasan Dabla has been fishing in the Arabian Sea for most of his 80 years. He spent 18 months in an Indian prison in the 1990s, but recalls the simpler days of his youth.
“When I was a boy I went fishing with my father and there was no danger. After partition there was a wall created among people,” he said.
Until India and Pakistan reach a settlement, Dabla’s happy memories look likely to remain just that: memories.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia