Flicker of hope for Indian convict
Karachi, Pakistan: "While I am against the death penalty, given Pakistan’s flawed judicial system, I won’t be able to request a reprieve for Sarabjit Singh as he was involved in terrorism and was proved guilty in court," Ansar Burney, says Pakistan’s minister for human rights.
But Burney expected "much trouble" if Singh’s execution was carried out. He had asked President Pervez Musharraf to commute the death sentences for all long-serving death row inmates and he had included Singh in this general appeal. "It’s not just for this particular prisoner, but for all those who have served 10 years or more in a Pakistani death cell, which is nothing but sheer living hell," he said. Singh was scheduled to be hanged on April 1. But behind-the-scene efforts between the governments of Pakistan and India, appear to have won him a temporary reprieve from the gallows. Almost as Burney was talking, Pranab Mukherjee, India’s external affairs minister, announced in Indian parliament that the "President of Pakistan has stayed the execution of Sarabjit Singh until April 30." Pleading innocence Sarabjit Singh, who claims that he is the victim of mistaken identity and that his real name is Manjit Singh, was sentenced to death in 2003 on charges of espionage and alleged involvement in four bomb blasts in Lahore and Multan in 1990, in which 14 innocent people died. Some 90 were also injured. Following the Supreme Court of Pakistan’s rejection of Singh’s plea for clemency in 2006, President Musharraf was petitioned for an amnesty. This was later also turned down after "thorough consideration". Singh’s sister, Dalbir Kaur, then threatened self-immolation at the Wagah check post, to bring attention to the case. All through his 17 years in captivity, Singh and his family have resolutely insisted that his first name was Manjit, not Sarabjit. They say he accidentally strayed into Pakistan in an inebriated condition in 1990. They maintain he is a victim of mistaken identity and wrongly accused. Making differentiation Burney, a caretaker minister with just a week left to serve in the interim government, may be anxious to keep in the background on the case following criticism that he helped secure the recent release of another alleged Indian spy, Kashmir Singh. Burney had discovered him in a Pakistani jail where he had been languishing on death row for 35 years. Although Burney insisted the release of Kashmir Singh was a purely humanitarian gesture, this failed to impress many Pakistanis. Burney was strongly criticised for having aided the liberation of a convicted Indian spy. Many expressed skepticism that India would be prepared to release convicted Pakistani spies held in its prisons. Criticism over this affair intensified last week when India returned the body of Khalid Mehmood, alleged to be a Pakistani spy. His body reportedly bore marks of torture. His family said he had gone to see a cricket match in India and lost his passport. "The way the events were played up in the media were factually incorrect," said S.K. Reddy, counsellor at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad. "The death of Mehmood took place in early February, much before the release of Kashmir Singh. The day Mehmood died, the Pakistani authorities were informed. However, the latter informed us that the family wanted the body to be sent towards the end of February. Accordingly, the body was sent. It so happened that it came soon after the release of Kashmir Singh, thereby inflaming the feelings of Pakistanis," Reddy explained. "There is no need to send dead bodies to each other," Burney commented ruefully. Rana Abdul Hameed, Sarabjit Singh’s lawyer, now also Advocate General of Punjab, has linked the case to a possible improvement of Indo-Pakistan relations. "An (amnesty) gesture on the part of the President would only help in creating better ties between the two countries," he said. Hameed added that the Indian government could reciprocate by releasing some Pakistani prisoners in its jails. Committee on prisoners Nasir Aslam Zahid, a former supreme court judge and member of the recently formed Indo-Pak Committee on Prisoners, agreed that the Singh case was of great significance to both countries and executing Singh at this time would be "all wrong". "Even if the government has no intention of giving Singh a reprieve, his imminent hanging should be put off, for some time," said Zahid. He added that it was highly unlikely that people like either of the two Singhs, or for that matter Mehmood, could be hired to spy on each other’s country. "In any case, except for nuclear facilities which are foolproof and well-guarded, there is nothing that is not available on the Internet. Everything you need to know about each other is just a click away!" His feared that the Sarabjit Singh case could stall the newly-initiated process of repatriation of prisoners between the two countries. "Both sides have agreed in principle to the release of juveniles, women, physically and mentally challenged prisoners and those who have completed their sentence. Also lists of prisoners between the two countries were to be exchanged. In fact, our Indian counterparts are to visit by mid-April," he said. Across the border in India feelings are running high over a possible execution of one of their nationals in Pakistan. The nationalist, opposition Bharatya Janata Party seems all set to take the government to task for being soft on Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri political activist, convicted in the devastating attack on Indian Parliament in 2001. "It is unfortunate that Sarabjit Singh, who has not even been identified for any act of violence, is being hanged in Pakistan while in India we are not ready to carry out the death sentence given to Afzal Guru, whose guilt has been upheld (by the courts)," BJP leader Vijay Kumar Malhotra was quoted telling the media in New Delhi. Source: IPS |
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