HoneY
MaaPeya Da LaaDLa
May 14:
In a setback to Indian death row prisoner Sarabjit Singh, Pakistan’s Interior Ministry has recommended that his capital punishment should not be commuted to life imprisonment contending such an action could “encourage subversive activities of terrorists”. Sarabjit’s case was reviewed on Tuesday at a high-level meeting in the Interior Ministry that was attended by officials of Foreign Office and ministries of Law and Human rights, Dawn News channel reported.
Law Ministry officials informed the meeting that Sarabjit could not be handed over to India, while Foreign Office officials said India should agree to release Pakistani prisoners in its jails in exchange of commuting of his death sentence.
Sarabjit is accused of triggering bomb blasts in Lahore in 1990 and has been languishing in Pakistan prisons for nearly two decades. Sarabjit was originally set to be hanged on April 1. Pakistani authorities had recently put off Sarabjit’s hanging indefinitely. This was done so that Pakistan’s new government could review his case following an appeal for clemency from the Indian Government. Following Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s intervention, Pakistani authorities put off the execution “till further orders”.
Sarabjit’s family insists that he is innocent and was wrongly convicted for the attacks. His family, which was in Lahore recently and met him, also denies that Sarabjit is a spy named Manjit Singh, as claimed by Pakistan, and maintains that he accidentally strayed into Pakistani territory in an inebriated condition.
In a setback to Indian death row prisoner Sarabjit Singh, Pakistan’s Interior Ministry has recommended that his capital punishment should not be commuted to life imprisonment contending such an action could “encourage subversive activities of terrorists”. Sarabjit’s case was reviewed on Tuesday at a high-level meeting in the Interior Ministry that was attended by officials of Foreign Office and ministries of Law and Human rights, Dawn News channel reported.
Law Ministry officials informed the meeting that Sarabjit could not be handed over to India, while Foreign Office officials said India should agree to release Pakistani prisoners in its jails in exchange of commuting of his death sentence.
Sarabjit is accused of triggering bomb blasts in Lahore in 1990 and has been languishing in Pakistan prisons for nearly two decades. Sarabjit was originally set to be hanged on April 1. Pakistani authorities had recently put off Sarabjit’s hanging indefinitely. This was done so that Pakistan’s new government could review his case following an appeal for clemency from the Indian Government. Following Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s intervention, Pakistani authorities put off the execution “till further orders”.
Sarabjit’s family insists that he is innocent and was wrongly convicted for the attacks. His family, which was in Lahore recently and met him, also denies that Sarabjit is a spy named Manjit Singh, as claimed by Pakistan, and maintains that he accidentally strayed into Pakistani territory in an inebriated condition.
