An Indian prisoner, Chamail Singh, arrested near the Sialkot border in 2010, and convicted of spying by a military court in June 2012 to serve a five-year sentence, may have been beaten to death by prison staff at Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail. Singh’s ‘offence’, it appears, was to have been washing his clothes. With prison authorities insisting that the Indian national, whose age is varyingly put at between 48 and 60 years, died of natural causes, a judicial inquiry has been ordered. The incident, being widely reported in Indian media, comes at a time when relations between the two countries are already strained. This latest death will not help matters.
The death of Singh, after a severe beating, was apparently witnessed by another inmate, who was able to speak about it to this publication as he was freed three days after the event. According to his account, Singh was washing his clothes at a tap in the jail’s courtyard early in the morning on January 15, when three members of the jail staff, including the assistant superintendant told him to stop. When he answered back, he was severely beaten by all three men, resulting in his death. Following this, affidavits were taken from Indian prisoners at the jail, stating that Singh had died of ‘natural causes’. The results of the autopsy are awaited. While the India media holds that there are 33 Indian nationals held at the jail, about eight to 14 statements were obtained, or, as the eyewitness claims, ‘extracted’.
The results of the judicial inquiry need to be seen. But we all know that prison brutality is a terrible reality in our country. Incidents of beating and torture are hardly uncommon, and while many prisoners suffer, Pakistanis and Indians held in each other’s jails face especially tough times. The account we have heard makes it imperative that an inquiry be held. It is important the truth behind Singh’s death be uncovered, so that if found guilty, those behind it can be punished and similar happenings prevented in the future.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 29th, 2013.
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yes it is tragic and it should be investigated. but if Indians try to play another drama, please do remind them of a young paksitani who was languising in amritsaar jail on charges of expired visa only and was killed inside by indian authorities.
his dead body was a gift to Pakistan from india in response to Paksitan releasing indian spy, kashmir singh in 2008.