KARACHI, Pakistan Twelve-year old Sagan Veera was asleep at sea when the Pakistani Coast Guard kicked him awake. The Indian trawler he worked on had strayed into Pakistani waters in the Arabian Sea. Now he languishes in jail, his young face etched with fear.Hundreds of fishermen share his fate, imprisoned for months, even years, by Pakistan and India for violating a disputed maritime border, despite a yearlong peace effort and an agreement to release those already held.Scores more fishermen are being arrested each month, mostly on the Pakistani side, as boats lacking modern navigational equipment cross the watery frontier in the hunt for a big catch.Veera, who is from Por Bander, in Gujarat, a western Indian state, was the youngest of the 55 Indian fishermen from 10 boats produced before a court last week after their arrest at sea.In an interview at a police lockup in Karachi, he recounted his surprise when a uniformed Pakistani official, rather than a fellow fisherman, woke him with a boot to his back.
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His elder brother, Rambik, 27, who had been working on the same boat, tried to console Veera, who said he longed to return to his father and sisters back in India. "Don't worry; we'll all go back home," Rambik said.But precedent suggests it could take a while. Pakistan holds 897 Indian fishermen, most in a jail on the outskirts of Karachi, the country's main port. Many have been detained for 12 months or more. During tenser political times, fishermen have languished in jail for years. India holds 108 Pakistani fishermen.Despite improved relations, the two countries have been slow to make good on an agreement last year to set up a hot line between their coast guards to share information about arrests and expedite releases.A Pakistani Maritime Security Agency spokesman, Khawar Hasan Khan, said Pakistan was seizing Indian vessels and their crews every other week. He claimed employers were pushing Indian fishermen to venture into rich Pakistani waters because the Indian government has restricted fishing in its own waters, in order to replenish marine stocks.
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Yet fishermen from both sides say boats lack navigational tools to let them know when they have crossed the poorly marked frontier, still subject to a dispute dating from a war in 1965."We can assess the depth of the sea," said Mangun Dahya, one of the Indians arrested last week. "We can forecast hurricanes. But small boats lack the gadgets to distinguish sea frontiers." But Khan described most border violations as intentional. He said Pakistan was lenient on boats straying up to 25 kilometers, or 15 miles, but he claimed Indian vessels often sailed much deeper into Pakistan's waters in groups of 15 to 20, staying in touch with each other using hand phones and wireless systems.In goodwill gestures, Pakistan last year freed hundreds of Indian fishermen, and India reciprocated. In June, they agreed to release the rest. Bureaucratic inertia and mutual suspicions mean that many remain behind bars.
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Detained Indian fisherboy Sagan Veera, front, sits with colleagues in custody at police lockup Friday, Dec 17, 2004 in Karachi, Pakistan. Hundreds of fishermen share his fate, imprisoned for months, even years, by rivals Pakistan and India for violating a disputed maritime border, despite a yearlong peace effort and agreement by the South Asian countries to release those already held