‘Both sides must release innocent prisoners’

Sarabjeet Singh finally gets to meet sister in Kot Lakhpat jail.

LAHORE:

The sister of Indian prisoner Sarbjeet Singh met her brother for three hours at Kot Lakhpat jail on Thursday and then appealed to both India and Pakistan to release each other’s prisoners who had been wrongly detained.

Dalbir Kaur was granted special permission by the Lahore High Court to meet her brother, who was convicted of spying and sabotage in 1990 and sentenced to death. Singh maintains that he is a poor and innocent farmer and had inadvertently crossed the border when he was arrested.

Kaur said her brother had complained that the verdict in his case had been reached in haste after just 22 days. She said India and Pakistan should release prisoners like her brother. “I also criticise my own country,” she said. “What is condemnable here is also condemnable there.”

She said it was great to meet her brother again after three years, but painful to see him on death row. She said Singh had adopted two cats, one of which he had named after his daughter Lachoo.

She said she had delivered him messages from his wife, daughters and friends and had tied three ‘Rakhis’ on him. She held up some bangles and a pencil which she said that Singh had made by hand for his daughter. He had also given Kaur an ornament of religious significance that he had made.

Kaur thanked Lahore High Court Chief Justice Ijaz Ahmed Chaudary for allowing the meeting, as well as the jail superintendent and other officials who had let a meeting scheduled for 40 minutes run for two hours. Advocate Awais Sheikh said that Singh had written letters to President Asif Ali Zardari, appealing for his death sentence to be commuted, and to Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, appealing to reopen his case.



Published in The Express Tribune, June 17th, 2011.