The coffin containing Sarabjit’s body being loaded in an ambulance. PHOTO: AFP
ISLAMABAD/ LAHORE:
After spending 22 years, eight months and three days in a Pakistani prison, convicted Indian spy Sarabjit Singh returned to India on Thursday not to be reunited with his family, but to be laid to rest.
Sarabjit, who was on death row at Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore for his involvement in a series of bomb attacks in Punjab in 1990, succumbed to his injuries Thursday morning at the Jinnah Hospital after being brutally assaulted by fellow inmates inside the jail on April 26. He died of a cardiac arrest.
His body was flown to Amritsar in India on a specially chartered flight arranged by New Delhi.
Officials of the Punjab home department handed over his body to officials of the Indian High Commission who then transported it to Lahore airport, before being flown to Amritsar. New Delhi obtained clearance from Islamabad for the chartered flight.
Several vehicles filled with armed policemen escorted the ambulance from the hospital to the airport.
Autopsy reveals cause of death
An eight-member medical team performed an autopsy on Sarbjit’s body at Jinnah Hospital on Thursday.
“Back head injury is determined as the cause of death in the autopsy. He was brain dead earlier, and on Thursday at around 1:00am he breathed his last,” a member of the team told The Express Tribune.
“The autopsy was carried out at Jinnah Hospital but it was done by the district board which is in place in every district. It carries out the autopsy of any prisoner if he dies. The report was compiled at Mian Munshi Hospital and from there it was forwarded to the higher authorities. We did not get any copy of it,” Allama Iqbal Medical College Principal and Chief Executive of Jinnah Hospital, Professor Mahmood Shaukat, told The Express Tribune.
Strict security arrangements were also in place at the hospital till the autopsy was completed.
Inspector Rehmat, who is a part of the police team investigating the murder, told The Express Tribune that he has now included murder charges in the FIR against the attackers. The FIR was initially registered under charges of attacking with intention of murder.
However, he said he had not received the autopsy report till the filing of this report. He said samples from the body were sent for forensics tests to the Punjab Forensic Science Academy and the final report on the autopsy was expected to be submitted in two weeks. He said he went to Kot Lakhpat Jail to record the statements of two of the suspects, Amir and Mudassir.
Rehmat added they would not be taken to the police station as they were also on death row and their trial would be conducted in jail.
Sarabjit’s body underwent a second autopsy in Amritsar by a team of doctors of the Amritsar Medical College as per the wishes of his family, officials said. Following that, his body will be taken to his native Bikhiwind village in Tarn Tarn district, 10km away from the Pakistan-India border.
Foreign Office statement
The Foreign Office on Thursday was optimistic that Sarbajit’s death would not affect reconciliation efforts between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
An FO spokesperson also said that Islamabad hoped Pakistani prisoners languishing in Indian jails would not face any reprisal attacks.
According to the FO statement, the Indian prisoner was being provided the best treatment available since he was hospitalised.
Separately, Punjab caretaker Chief Minister Najam Sethi ordered a judicial inquiry into the attack.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 3rd, 2013.
COMMENTS (2)
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Indians should consider that he should have been hanged many years earlier but he breathed more than it was expected. Twelve Pakistani families are still to mourn because of his and his masters coward act. What about wounded victims who must be relied on others in miserable conditions. Killing can never be appreciated and death is always death which should not be celebrated as it was celebrated outside white house at the time of killing of Osama.
Firstly I wonder why after 22 years they 'decided' to kill him now . What is the new thing he has done of late to provoke this attack. If the Pak government wanted to kill him, they could/ should / must have done it a couple of decades back. It would have saved the the people of both sides of the border lot of time and energy. Why this sudden 'decision' to kill him all of a sudden. Something is not right in this matter. I think its a personal brawl in the jail which killed him and not some preplanned calculated attack.