Sarabjit Singh is innocent
Sarabjit Singh, the Indian prisoner who has been in jail for the past 17 years, is going to be hanged in April if no effective last-minute efforts are made to save his life. Pervez Musharraf the President of Pakistan who has rejected his mercy petition, can be persuaded by justice-loving people to have another look at Sarabjit’s case, which is nothing but a caseof mistaken identity.
He was arrested as Manjit Singh, accused of being involved in serial blasts in Lahore & Multan in 1990, claiming 14 deaths. He was convicted & sentenced to death by hanging despite his plea that he was not the man the authorities had been looking for. The Pakistan Supreme Court also rejected his plea for clemency in March 2006.
Sarabjit’s case, it seems, had become a matter of prestige for the law-enforcement authorities in Pakistan. They cooked up spying charges against him & produced false witness to ensure his conviction. Since he belonged to an enemy country, his plea that he was not the person called Manjit Singh, who was suspected to have been behind the 1990 bomb blasts, fell on deaf ears. No thought was given to the argument that this resident of Bhikhiwind, a border village in India’s Amritsar district, strayed into Pakistan territory in an inebriated state.
There is still time to prevent a grave injustice being done in the case of this innocent villager. As India has conveyed to Pakistan, this is not “the best way to deal” with the issue involved. Of course, Sarabjit Singh has not been as lucky as Kashmir Singh, now back to India after waiting on death row for 35 years in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail. Kashmir singh, now back to India after waiting on death row for 35 years in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail.
Kashmir Singh, who attracted the attention of Pakistan Human rights Minister ansar Burney, was treated as having suffered enough after his arrest on spying charges. This appreciable gesture on the part of Islamabad was considered a major boost to the peace constituency in the subcontinent. Sparing the life of sarabjit Singh, who has been simply unlucky all these years, will be a far greater contribution to the cause of peace between India & Pakistan.
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