Forty-two days after he died in a Pakistan jail, fisherman Jagdish Mangal Bamaniya’s last rites were performed in his native village in Nanavada village of the Gir Somnath district as his mortal remains were handed over to the grieving family on Sunday.
Bamaniya’s mortal remains were handed over to Indian authorities by Pakistan at Wagah Border near Amritsar in Punjab on Friday.
A team of officers of the Fisheries Department had brought the coffin from Amritsar to Ahmedabad by air late on Saturday night and from Ahmedabad, it was transported to Nanavada village in Kodinar taluka of Gir Somnath district.
The ambulance carrying the coffin reached the village at around 10:30 AM, officers said, adding the fisherman had died due to a heart attack.
“My elder brother Jagdish died in Pakistan and we received his body well after more than a month. He died due to an illness as there are no proper medical facilities available there (in Pakistan),” Kail’s Jagdish’s younger brother told reporters on Sunday. “Since the day he was arrested, we never heard from him, no letter or anything else,” he added.
Bamaniya is survived by his wife Savita, a daughter, his mother Lakshami, and brother Kapil. He was apprehended by the Pakistan Marine Security Agency on February 18, 2022, for allegedly crossing over to the Pakistan side of the notional International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) off the Kutch coast while fishing on board a fishing trawler of Porbandar.
He was on the list of 100 Indian fishermen who, Pakistan had announced, were to be released from Malir jail in Karachi on July 3 and sent back to India. However, for reasons that remain unexplained, the batch of 100 fishermen was not released by Pakistan, says Jatin Desai, a Mumbai-based activist who has been working for the welfare of fishermen of India and Pakistan and promoting friendly ties between the two neighbouring countries.
Kapil said that through Balu Socha, president of Samudra Shramik Sangh (SSS), a Kodinar-based NGO working for welfare of fishermen of Gujarat, he learned on August 18 that Jagdish had died in Malir jail on August 6.
There are 266 Indian fishermen in Pakistan’s custody and 68 Pakistani fishermen in custody of India. Most of the Indian fishermen caught by Pakistan are from Gujarat.
Kapil, himself a fisherman, urged the Indian government to try and secure the release of the Indian fishermen lodged in Malir jail. “While we have lost our brother now due to an illness, there are around 250 of our men in Pakistan jail. I humbly request the government to secure their release,” Kapil said.
He added, “Two of the 266 fishermen still lodged in Pakistan jail are residents of Nanavada village.”