Pakistan on Monday termed as "ungrateful" assertions by relatives of 1971 Indian Prisoners of War that they were not allowed access to military prisons during their recent visit to the country to find their loved ones.
"I must say that is very ungrateful. We were not obliged to allow this visit because efforts to find any missing persons in Pakistan were undertaken in the 70s, 80s and 90s," Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam told reporters in Islamabad.
"But it was out of consideration for these parties that we allowed them to come here and allowed them to visit 10 jails," she said.
Responding to a query on the comments of the 14-member India delegation that they visited only civilian jails and their request to visit military prisons was not acceded to, Aslam said, "We also assured them that there were no Indians in any of the military detention centres. Our word should have been good enough."
The families of missing Indian POWs visited 10 civilian prisons during their fortnight-long visit recently, but their request for access to Attock jail was not granted.
The relatives, while expressing gratitude to President Pervez Musharraf, said the visits to civilian prisons were of no help as nothing existed about the missing men even in records of the prisons they visited.
Aslam also took umbrage at the observation of members of the delegation that over a dozen Indian civilian prisoners they met in Lahore prison were found to be mentally imbalanced.
