SRIKAKULAM: More than 300 people are stuffed in a small room throughout the night, where sitting itself is nearly impossible leave alone sleeping. Added to it, there is no provision for adequate food and proper clothing for Indian prisoners. This was the plight of Indian fishermen who strayed into the territorial waters of Pakistan and got caught.
If this spine-chilling story, which was recalled by Chodipilli Musalayya, a fisherman from the remote Kunduvanipeta village of Srikakulam district, is to be believed, the fear among the families of the 22 fishermen arrested by Pakistan for inadvertently straying into its territorial waters, about their safety is not misplaced. Musalayya had spent one year in Karachi prison.
“About 320 prisoners were stuffed in a small room in the prison during night. We did not have the space even to sit in the room,’’ said Musalayya, recounting the ordeal he suffered for one year after he was captured by Pak Coast Guards, while fishing near Okha in Gujarat in November 2000. “I was not given any clothes in the prison. I had to wear one pair of clothes for the whole year. The prison authorities did not even give us toothbrush for the entire period. It was a real hell in Karachi prison where I suffered for one year,” he said.
Musalayya was among the 25 Indian fishermen who spent one year in Karachi prison. With no alternative livelihood, the fishermen resumed fishing after they were released from Pak jail.
Musalayya migrated to Okha in Gujarat in August 2000 in search of livelihood, just one year after his marriage. At that time, he was 21-year-old. Those were the days when the fishermen were not equipped with GPS technology to avoid straying into the territorial waters of neighbouring country while fishing.
“In November 2000, we (about 31 fishermen) went into the deep sea in six boats for fishing. Around 3 am, we woke up in the anchored boats after hearing loud noise and found ourselves surrounded by Pakistan Coast Guards.
They took 25 fishermen into their custody and the drivers of the boats were asked to follow them. However, the boat drivers managed to escape from the Pakistan Coast Guards,” he said.During the 24-hour journey to the Pakistani coast, they tied us and kept on slapping us. We were not given food and water. After reaching the coast, they put us in local jail for one day. After completing the necessary legal procedures, we were shifted to Karachi prison, he said.
The food for the prisoners included a chapathi with curry and tea as breakfast, two chapathis each as lunch and dinner. Due to inadequate food, majority of the fishermen became sick in the prison. “It was only after the release of some Pakistani prisoners from the jail, we used their clothes. Spending night in a packed room with little space even to move was an every day ordeal we suffered in Karachi prison for one year. However, we were allowed to move freely in the open space in the prison in daytime,” he said.
Musalayya and other fishermen were released from Karachi prison in February 2002. He continued to go to Gujarat for livelihood during lean fishing season in the Bay of Bengal. Five fishermen from Kunduvanipeta with a population 1,500, had served sentence in Pakistani prisons for straying into the territorial waters.