Prison Stress: Lawyer wants yoga lessons for Singh

Yoga would lower his stress and depression and improve both his physical and mental health.

LAHORE: The lawyer for convicted Indian spy Sarbajit Singh, presently on death row in Kot Lakhpat Jail, has asked to be allowed to give him daily yoga lessons to improve his physical and mental health. Advocate Awais Sheikh filed a petition in the Lahore High Court asking that his client be given a medical check-up. He said that Singh had developed heart disease during his lengthy incarceration. Without regular exercise and sunlight outdoors, Singh had been suffering increased backaches, high blood pressure, eating disorders, migraines, insomnia, and high cholesterol. Sheikh asked that he be allowed to arrange for yoga lessons for Singh at their meetings in jail as this would lower his stress and depression and improve both his physical and mental health. He also complained about a comment made by the inspector general for prisons in official reports that “frequent meetings with a prisoner of an enemy country are not feasible”. He said that such comments might hurt India-Pakistan relations and the Pakistanis being held in Indian jails.The chief justice is due to hear the petition today.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 8^th, 2011.