When a bearded Pakistani youth looking askance queued up at Wagah on September 12 to return to his homeland, his single-piece luggage, a cardbox
punctured with holes, had a curious content - four white pigeons which he had reared during his stay at the Jammu jail. In 1998, he was arrested by the Border Security Force when he wandered into the Indian territory, not too far off from his village in Sialkot district. Though sentenced for three months, the deaf-and-dumb prisoner, known by the name Goonga, languished in jail for over seven years as the Pakistani authorities were unable to establish his identity for the purpose of repatriation.

For once, his avian belongings spoke more eloquently - and symbolically - than the bonhomie that marked the exchange of 583 civilian prisoners by India and Pakistan at the sun-drenched joint check post, 30 km from Amritsar. While India repatriated 148 Pakistani nationals, Pakistan reciprocated by setting free 435 Indian prisoners - 371 of them Gujarati fishermen who had strayed into the Pakistani maritime territory.

On both sides of the Radcliffe Line, it was a poignant homecoming, punctuated by drum-beating and dance revelry in Pakistan, and by patriotic songs, including A.R.Rehman's "Vande matram" on the Indian territory.
A slightly built Suraj Bhan was the first Indian to step across the zero line. In a touching gesture, he prostrated on the ground to kiss the motherland he
had left in 1997 in search of greener pastures in Greece
but landed up instead in Pakistani jails. "It's like a second birth," said the Ambala youth, his eyes glistening with tears. "I was feeling desperate
in jail but hope arose when India and Pakistan started talking peace."

Indeed, the Monday repatriation - the biggest-ever swap of civilian prisoners by India and Pakistan in recent times - was the peace dividend that spelt
freedom from long detention. More significant than the numbers was its timing, coming two days before the Manmohan-Musharraf meeting in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session on
September 14. The release prisoners, many of them old and mental wrecks, marked yet another step forward in the fast-evolving India-Pakistan peace overtures.

In fact, the stage for the latest exchange was set in less than two weeks after a decision at the home secretary-level talks on August 31 to release all
civilian prisoners who had completed their sentence and whose nationality had been verified. In a ground-breaking move, both sides had agreed to provide better consular access to prisoners and notify each other of
arrests. What had nudged India and Pakistan was the high-profile case of the alleged Indian spy Sarabjit Singh, facing death sentence in Pakistan, which had not only put the spotlight on the human issue of forgotten transborder prisoners, but also underscored the tardy and excruciatingly slow process for their release and repatriation.

Every year, India and Pakistan detain hundreds of each other's nationals on charges of illegal border crossings or overstaying visa. Many of them are
charged with spying and drug-trafficking and sentenced to long imprisonments, ranging from 10 to 14 years. But, a majority are the ones who wander into the wrong side of the border, along the long,
poorly demarcated frontiers. Even those charged with illegal border-crossing, an offence punishable with three to six-month
imprisonment, languish in jails long after they complete their sentence. They are trapped in a limbo with their fate sealed by a cruel conundrum generated
by the Indian and Pakistan bureaucracies and bound by a history of mutual distrust and hostility. What lies at the root of the human problem is denial of a regular consular access to each other's prisoners hinders the verification of their nationalities and causes long delays in their repatriation.

Illustrating the cross-border prisoners' plight is the case of Kuldip Singh, 24, who was among those freed in the latest exchange. Son of a small farmer in Sangowal village in Punjab's Sangrur district, he paid
Rs 4 lakh to a travel agent to enter Italy illegally through a sea route in 1999. He was however duped and dumped in Turkey where he was arrested and
then pushed into Iran. The Iranian authorities jailed him for six months before pushing him into Pakistan.

Though sentenced for six months, Kuldip ended up rotting in Pakistani jails for more than four years in the absence of consular access to the Indian High
Commission in Islamabad. "It's like getting into a hell hole," he says, echoing the tales of 102 Punjabi youth who had landed up in Pakistani detention while chasing the foreign dream. At least 25 of them are
still lodged there long after completion of their six-month sentence.

It's the same story for the Pakistani nationals, convicted of illegal border crossings but languishing in Indian jails beyond their sentence period. "But for the media frenzy over the Sarabjit case, our nightmare would not
have ended," says Imitiaz Ahmed, a Pakistani who returned
home after spending eight years in Jammu jails.

According to the Indian Government, there are still 923 Indians in Pakistani jails, including 54 defence personnel of the 1971 war whose existence is denied by Pakistan. In fact, resurgence of the diplomatic concern for transborder prisoners has rekindled hope among the families of missing defence personnel who had traveled to Wagah on September 12 hoping to
get some clue from Indian prisoners released by Pakistan. "For us, it's been an endless and traumatic wait but the government has forgottenits living martyrs detained in Pakistan," says Simmi Waraich, daughter of Major S.P.S Waraich.

With India and Pakistan agreeing on a fast-track consular and verification process, it could well mean the light at the end of the tunnel for many Indian and Pakistani prisoners in each other's country. "My son may now return soon," says Gurdip Singh, a Gurdaspur farmer and father of Nishan Singh lodged in a Pakistani jail for the last nine years. Ironically, however, Sarabjit
Singh, whose case spurred the biggest bilateral swap of prisoners, has apparently got entangled into fresh controversy over the President's power on his mercy petition via-a-vis Islamic laws in Pakistan. Clearly,
the condemned prisoner's release would remain on a wing and a prayer.

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