Pakistan arrests dozens of Indian fishermen

Pakistan has arrested 25 Indian fisherman for violating the territorial waters of the country, its maritime security agency has said.

The fishermen were detained and their boats seized on Sunday morning, the agency said on Monday.

“We are preparing documents to produce all of them in court,” police official Mohammad Anwer told the AFP news agency.

Indian and Pakistani fishermen are frequently detained on the charge, as the two countries’ borders are not clearly defined in the Arabian Sea.

Many are sent to jail where they often languish for at least a year before being handed over to the authorities in their homeland.

“The court is likely to send them to jail for at least a year over the violation,” Anwer said.

India freed 37 Pakistani fishermen held for almost 16 months in May.

Pakistan also freed 151 Indian prisoners in the same month and returned 57 fishing boats as a goodwill gesture before Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s attendance at Narendra Modi’s swearing-in as India’s prime minister.

Relations between the two countries have taken a turn for the worse after Pakistan’s top envoy met Kashmiri leaders in August, with India responding by calling off talks between the countries’ foreign secretaries.

Modi said on Saturday that Pakistan needed to show more “seriousness” to resume dialogue between the historic adversaries.