Pakistan prisoners' gesture touches fishermen's hearts

Chennai: The kind hearted gesture of a few Pakistani fellow prisoners was what touched Anthony Raj, who had to suffer cramped cave-like Iranian jails after taking bullets on his chest and shoulder mid-sea.

“They were also jailed there like us. They knew we were struggling without clothes. Since they got released a few weeks before us, they handed over their dresses to us when they left the jail,” recalled the fisherman, who is still nursing his bullet injuries.

According to Anthony Raj, four of them used to go sea with the native boat owner. On the night of February 6, armed Iranians appeared from nowhere, their faces masked. “We thought they were sea pirates and started speeding away and that was when they opened fire. They took me to a hospital. After 10 days of treatment I was also taken to jail,” said Anthony Raj, who went to Dubai in June 2015 along with three others.

Though the Iranian authorities released the native boat owner along with his vessel after verification, there was no move to release the four Tamilians arrested along with him. Only after their relatives started making enquiries did the agent contact the native boat owner, who informed him about developments. “We were so famished in jail we could hardly stand up. They gave us a chapatti and a bowl of rice for the entire day. Whenever we were taken out of the cells, we were blindfolded and handcuffed from behind,” he said. Are they going back to sea in that area? “Well, we don’t know what to do here. We may go back after three months. We were making a decent living until we were jailed,” he revealed.