Sarabjit Singh: ‘An extraordinary miscarriage of justice’

Defence lawyer to launch book explaining flaws in conviction.

LAHORE:

Advocate Awais Sheikh, the lawyer for Indian national Sarabjit Singh, is to launch a book on March 1 (Friday) explaining why he believes his client’s conviction and imprisonment is “an extraordinary miscarriage of justice”.

Singh was sentenced to death in 1990 after being convicted of carrying out bomb blasts in Lahore and Faisalabad that killed 14 people. In Sarabjit Singh  A Case of Mistaken Identity, Sheikh states that his client accidentally crossed the border into Pakistan and was then set up to take the fall for the bombings.

The 199-page book, published by Rajkamal Prakashan Pvt Ltd, New Delhi, will be launched at the Lahore Press Club on March 1. It seeks to detail various flaws in the investigation, trial and appeals in the case and includes letters written by Singh to his family in India and to himself in prison, as well as to the Indian and Pakistani governments asking for his release.

Sheikh writes that Singh did not get due process, that fundamental legal issues were not addressed, and that the investigation agency introduced false witnesses. “Sarabjit has certainly been a victim of unfair conviction that has caused him to be in prison for his entire adult life,” he writes.

For one, the FIR of the case, registered on the complaint of then Lahore commissioner Shahid Rafi, nominates one Manjit Singh, son of Mehanga Singh. Sheikh points out that his client is Sarabjit Singh, son of Salakhan Singh.



Sarabjit Singh was produced before the magistrate by a Military Intelligence officer on September 8, 1990. The magistrate proceeded with the case of Manjit Singh and “did not listen to Sarabjit, who repeatedly said that he was not Manjit Singh. He did not bother to confirm and verify the name of the accused produced in his court.”

Having failed to resolve the question of identity, Sheikh says, “All subsequent proceedings in this case are illegal and against the facts of the case.”

At this stage, Singh had no access to counsel. He was unable to contact his family in India and tell them of his arrest. The government of Pakistan failed to pass on the news of his arrest to his family, which was a violation of international law.

Sheikh writes that Singh’s supposed confession, which was the basis for his conviction, did not carry his signature or thumb print. In his statement before the judge of the special court, Singh denied the charges and said that Manjit Singh had been arrested and subsequently let off, and he had been presented as a “substitute”. The sole witness in the case, Shaukat Ali, had stated that he had been forced to testify against Singh, Sheikh writes.

In a letter, Singh writes that after being arrested, he was produced before a Major Ghulam Abbas. “He said abruptly, ‘You are Manjit Singh.’ I said no. he nodded to the soldier. The soldiers started beating me ... My cries and laments fell on deaf ears. At last I was turned into Manjit Singh and, though I was not an accused, was convicted of the bomb blasts.”

He criticises the judge in another letter. “All the evidence recorded and the cross-questioning carried out were in my favour. The judge of the terrorism court, Aslam Shami, nullified the cross-questions,” Singh says.

“The judges in Pakistan only see that such and such a person has been accused by the police and rule, therefore, that he must be the culprit. They don’t go in to the statements of the witnesses nor see the exploitation of the police. The judges, I have seen, bow easily to any political pressure. Instead of giving justice they end up being part of the game ... in their hearts they are afraid of the power of the police. The police and judiciary often work in the same way. If there happens to be a government case against a person, then only Allah, ‘Bhagwan, Wahe guru’ can save the person,” Singh writes in another letter.

In another, he complains about his treatment in jail. “I was mentally tortured in 2006-07. My pen and paper and other things were snatched. Even now they turn to old tricks. The man in the cell next to me, Karpal Singh, is a total nuisance. He gives false information about me to the jailors.” And later: “I have not been allowed to sit in the sun. Here I can get sunlight for only an hour or so.”

Citing a Supreme Court judgement, Sheikh says that as Singh has spent 22 years in solitary confinement in jail, his sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment. “I am hopeful that the president will consider the clemency appeals filed,” he writes.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2013.