AJMER: Following Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's intervention just days before the Foreign Secretary level talks between India and Pakistan in Islamabad, 79-year-old Pakistani virologist Dr Khalil Chishtie, who is languishing in Ajmer jail, may finally be released, CNN-IBN reported on Tuesday.
Serving a life term for a 1992 murder, his mercy petition has been cleared by Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, after the Prime Minister asked Home Minister P. Chidambaram to examine the request of Supreme Court judge Justice Katju to release Dr Chishtie on humanitarian grounds. Rajasthan's Governor Shivraj Patil is likely to give a go ahead to his mercy petition.
“According to the law there is a provision for old and weak people to get parole. People should be entitled to that,” said Dr Khalil Chishtie.
Dr Chishtie was sentenced for life on January 31, 2011. He was visiting his mother in Ajmer in 1992 when an altercation took place and one person died. The trial took 19 years to conclude. “Our case comes under self defence, which they didn't take under consideration. He is 80 years old anyway and he reaching the end of his life,” said his brother Saleem Chishtie.
Along with Dr Chishtie and his family the civil rights groups, which have been pleading for his release on humanitarian grounds, since he's not only 79 years old but is also suffering from multiple ailments, are now hopeful that Dr Chishtie will soon be home in Pakistan.
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