Amritsar, 3rd May: India and Pakistan ties take another hit as the prominent Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh died in a Pakistan hospital early Thursday. Sarabjit Singh was injured after attacked by his fellow inmates in jail.
Sarabjit Singh will be accorded state funeral in his Punjab hometown of Bhikhiwind on Friday afternoon.
At 12.45 am Pakistan time (1.15 am IST), Lahore’s Jinnah hospital announced that Sarabjit was dead, bringing an end to a 23-year saga that began on a fateful August day in 1990 when he crossed over to Pakistan.
Singh was arrested in Pakistan in 1991 and sentenced to death for spying and carrying out four bomb blasts that killed 14 people. His family says he was an innocent farmer who was arrested after drunkenly wandering over the border.
Singh was hospitalized with a head injury on Friday after two fellow prisoners attacked him in jail in the eastern city of Lahore.
India’s government and his family had pleaded with Pakistan to let him return to India for treatment.
“The criminals responsible for the barbaric and murderous attack on him must be brought to justice,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a statement.
“It is particularly regrettable that the government of Pakistan did not heed the pleas of the government of India, Sarabjit’s family and of civil society in India and Pakistan to take a humanitarian view of this case.”
Sarabjit’s body was brought to India from Pakistan last night. The body was brought to Amritsar from Lahore onboard a special Air India flight and was subsequently taken to his native town in a helicopter.
Before handing over the body to the family, a second post-mortem was also conducted on Sarabjit’s body at the government-run Amritsar Medical College in Patti to “know the cause behind his death”. The first autopsy was conducted at Pakistan’s Jinnah Hospital where Sarabjit died.
The Punjab government has announced a financial assistance of Rs 1 crore for the family of Sarabjit and declared a three-day state mourning. The Centre has also announced ex-gratia payment of Rs 25 lakh for Sarabjit’s family from Prime Minister’s Relief Fund.
Bureau Report
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