ISLAMABAD, Aug 26: Pakistan on Friday allowed Indian diplomats to meet a convicted Indian spy on death row amid heightened moves to save the life of the man who, Islamabad says, was behind deadly bomb blasts but is called innocent by his family.
A foreign ministry spokesman said the government had granted approval to an Indian High Commission request for consular access to convict Sarabjit Singh, now lodged in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail.
The High Commission had made the request in a diplomatic note on Tuesday after Singh’s relatives in Indian Punjab threatened to commit suicides if he was hanged.
There was no immediate information when the meeting would take place.
The spokesman said it was now for the Indian High Commission to approach authorities concerned such as the Home Department of the Punjab government and jail authorities.
Sarabjit Singh, alias Manjit Singh, was sentenced to death by an Anti-Terrorism Court of Punjab on charges of carrying out bomb blasts in Lahore, Faisalabad and Kasur districts as an agent of Indian external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). The sentence was upheld by the Lahore High Court and confirmed by the Supreme Court on Aug 18.
But Singh’s relatives say he is a simple farmer who was arrested after he strayed across the Pakistani border from his frontier hometown of Bhikiwind in the Indian Punjab in 1990, while being drunk.
Although New Delhi has not yet formally acknowledged that Singh is an Indian national, Indian External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh on Thursday took up the case with Pakistan High Commissioner in India Aziz Ahmed Khan and called for clemency for the convict. Several members of the Indian parliament have also taken up the matter.
An Indian external affairs ministry spokesman said in New Delhi on Tuesday confirmation of Singh’s identity could follow a consular access to him.
Possible courses of action to save Singh’s life could be an application to Pakistan’s Supreme Court for a judicial review of the Aug 18 ruling by two of its judges and, if it were turned down, a mercy petition to President Gen Pervez Musharraf, legal sources said. No such move has been made yet.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is due to meet President Musharraf in mid-September in New York during the UN General Assembly session, had assured Singh’s relatives on Tuesday he would speak to the Pakistani leader about the matter and seek his intervention.
