Maritime authorities captured 40 Indian fishermen and seized seven boats for violating Pakistani territorial waters in the Arabian sea, officials said on Sunday. The fishermen were arrested overnight about 90 nautical miles off the Karachi port and handed over to police Sunday morning, a senior official of Pakistan's Maritime Security Agency (MSA) said. The accused were to appear before a local magistrate on Monday. At least 20 Indian fishermen were also held last week. Early this month, officials of the two countries agreed on expediting the process for the release of impoverished fishermen, languishing in Pakistani and Indian prisons for illegally fishing in each other's territorial waters. Efforts to ensure early release of fishermen are part of the Confidence Building Measures (CBM) the two countries are currently engaged in to normalize their decades-old tense relations. More than 100 Pakistani fishermen are languishing in Indian jails on similar charges. In Pakistan, the figure of jailed Indian fishermen is stated to be above 500.
