LAHORE, May 2: The authorities handed over the body of Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh to Indian officials at the Allama Iqbal International Airport on Thursday after conducting his postmortem in Jinnah Hospital.

According to the initial postmortem report, the ‘confirmed condemned prisoner’ of Kot Lakhpat jail had died of massive internal bleeding from a 5cm head injury, an official told Dawn.

Singh suffered a critical cardiac arrest in the intensive care unit of Jinnah Hospital in the wee hours of Thursday and died instantly.

The postmortem was performed by a six-member district medico-legal board, headed by the Government Mian Munshi Hospital’s Medical Superintendent, Dr Mohammad Amir.

A member of the board said the cause of death was internal bleeding from deep head injuries. “It appeared that a 5cm-wide injury on the top of the skull was the cause of his death,” he said. The board also found some minor injuries on the face, neck and arms.

The member said the board had sent samples from some organs of the body, including spleen, kidneys, liver, stomach and parts of brain, for forensic analysis. He said a detailed report would be issued on the basis of the content analysis by the Punjab Forensic Science Agency within a couple of weeks.

Singh was allegedly attacked last Friday by some inmates in the jail with iron rods and other blunt weapons, leaving him critically injured.

His body was shifted from Jinnah Hospital to the airport in an ambulance escorted by policemen in several vans.

The transportation of the body to India was halted for some time when the customs authorities at the airport raised an objection that the documents presented did not include a no-objection certificate by the foreign ministry, police reports etc.