Death Row: Sister allowed to meet jailed brother

LAHORE:

Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday allowed Dalbir Kaur, the sister of Indian agent Sarabjeet Singh on death row, to meet her brother at Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore. Chief Justice (CJ) Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhary issued the order while accepting the writ petition filed by Kaur through her counsel Awais Sheikh seeking permission to meet her brother which the jail authorities had denied. The CJ directed Additional Advocate General Muhammad Hanif Khatana to coordinate with the home secretary and superintendent jail to make arrangements for a meeting between the brother and sister on Thursday (today). The court ruled that she be allowed to meet her brother again before leaving for India.  Kaur submitted that she had tried several times to meet her brother but the jail authorities did not permit her. Singh was arrested in 1990 on charges of espionage and terrorism and was accused of carrying out bomb blasts in Lahore, Kasur and Faisalabad, killing dozens of innocent people. The LHC had awarded him a death sentence in January 2003 in four cases and the Supreme Court had upheld the death sentence on August 18, 2010. Singh’s family in India has made several appeals to the government of Pakistan for his release.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 16th, 2011.