NEW DELHI, Aug 24: Television networks, members of parliament, children, film actors and war widows rallied on Wednesday behind a growing campaign to save an Indian sentenced to hang in Pakistan on charges of espionage.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has promised to talk to President Pervez Musharraf about condemned spy Sarabjit Singh after Pakistan’s Supreme Court upheld the sentence last week.
MPs have said they will debate the matter in parliament.
Sarabjit Singh’s relatives claim he is a simple farmer who was arrested after he strayed across the Pakistani border from his northern frontier hometown of Bhikiwind in Punjab state while drunk in 1990.
His sister Dalbir Kaur says her brother has been confused with Manjit Singh, whom the Pakistani authorities want for a series of bombings in 1990.
On Wednesday Bhikiwind residents held street marches in a show of solidarity for Singh. In New Delhi schoolchildren launched a public campaign in support of the man set to be hanged on a date yet to be fixed.
TV stations NDTV and Headlines Today urged viewers to send SMS messages in support of Singh. Pakistan says he is a member of India’s external intelligence agency RAW and carried out blasts in Lahore, Faisalabad and Kasur.—AFP