The Sarabjit tragedy

It's important, for India & Pakistan, to learn from Sarabjit Singh’s tragic saga, sit and evolve policy for prisoners.

Pakistan failed to protect Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh, leading to a most heinous attack on him that eventually led to his tragic death, and placing India-Pakistan relations under renewed strain. The attack has given the votaries of war between the two nations yet another handle to flog their cause, with television channels in New Delhi adding further grist to the mill.

Informed debate has been turned into macho muscle-flexing, with journalists joining extreme opinion to preach hatred and divisiveness. It can be no one’s case that Pakistan has ensured justice for the Indian prisoners, or followed even the basic norms of international law in according them justice and protection in jails. But at the same time, hate talk and irrational demands cannot be condoned as these will only strengthen the war lobbies and serve as yet another setback to peace between the two countries. It is imperative thus, for Islamabad to take several steps forward in a bid to defuse the growing tension and more importantly, to make its commitment to peace clear.

Singh’s death is a tragedy, more so as the family he lived to see one day was by his side when he was not in a position to even be aware of the fact. It is also a story that highlights the role of governments when the poor are apprehended and caught. Singh was caught by the Pakistani authorities and charged with terror attacks. He was probably working for the Indian intelligence agencies, which, of course, turned their back on him the moment he was apprehended. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Singh fought an isolated legal battle with the help of compassionate Pakistani lawyers and his family that ran from pillar to post to keep his case alive. Hope for his release turned into trauma for his young daughters after he was badly beaten by fellow inmates; this, after repeatedly warning the authorities of the death threats he had been receiving, with Pakistan taking little to no action to ensure his safety. The Indian government, too, did not bother to raise the issue at any level that could make a difference.

The prisoners responsible for the attack have been booked and the jail staff suspended in the first responses by the Pakistan government. An enquiry has been ordered as well and Pakistan must ensure that this is transparent and impartial. However, this incident will only make a difference if it leads to a thorough review by both countries of their attitude and approach towards each other’s prisoners. Civil rights groups have been asking for a comprehensive prisoners’ policy that both New Delhi and Islamabad have been dismissive of. The result is that hundreds of poor and innocent fisherfolk and shepherds, who stray across invisible territorial lines, are languishing in Indian and Pakistani jails.

There is an imperative need for both to set up a mechanism under credible persons to review the cases in jail and formulate a policy whereby every fresh case is reviewed immediately and action taken to ensure that the innocent poor do not have to pay for the rigidity of their respective governments.

There are sufficient individuals with good sense in both India and Pakistan — although, after watching the hysteria on television, one often tends to lose sight of this fact — who can constitute the talent pool for such a mechanism based on human rights and the law. There is no reason for fisherfolk, for instance, to languish for decades in jails, with often no hope of return, just because the governments of New Delhi and Islamabad are not interested in their future and only concerned with the convoluted polemics of bilateral relations. There are good human rights bodies on both sides that can be entrusted with the task of overseeing the arrest, detention and release of prisoners and thereby ensure that innocents do not suffer.

Meanwhile, the media on both sides should be urged by organisations like the Editors Guild in India to, at least, practise some restraint instead of using incidents to stretch wisdom and rationality to breaking point. Ill-informed and jingoistic debates, often conducted by irresponsible anchors, certainly do not work in the interests of either country.

It is important now, for both India and Pakistan, to learn from Sarabjit Singh’s tragic saga and sit together to evolve a policy and a mechanism that does not allow the poor, innocent Indians and Pakistanis straying across borders to vanish into sinister dark dungeons of either life imprisonment or imprisonment for life by default, just because they are too poor to ring the bells in the corridors of power. And hence, their life is cheap for both New Delhi and Islamabad.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 4^th, 2013.