As of now, there is a caretaker Government in charge in Pakistan and it has only the limited mandate of ensuring that the general election scheduled for May 11 is held in a free and fair manner. This gives an already reluctant Islamabad ample excuse to not take a decision either against or in favour of moving Singh to India. In all fairness, there is not much that New Delhi can do about it at this point anyway — more so, since mere diplomatic flexing is not expected to get it much leverage with Islamabad. And so it is, that once again India has been caught completely unaware and is now totally confused about how best to respond to the situation.
And yet, it did not have to be like this. Gruesome and gut-wrenching as it was, the April 26 attack on Sarabjit Singh was predictable. In fact, according to some news reports, Singh’s lawyer, Mr Awais Shaikh, had written a number of letters to the prison authorities as well as to high-level Government officials that his client had received death threats from some of the inmates as well as from jihadigroups.
These threats were made ostensibly in retaliation to the hangings of Ajmal Kasab, the Pakistani terrorist convicted for his role in the 26/11 terror attack, and Afzal Guru, the Kashmiri separatist who was sentenced to death for master-minding the 2001 Parliament attack. While Kasab was hanged on November 21, 2012, Guru’s sentence was carried out earlier this year on February 9. It is important to note in this context that after Guru’s hanging, Pakistan’s National Assembly had passed a resolution condemning the execution; in response, India also adopted a parliamentary resolution condemning Pakistan’s needless interference in its sovereign affairs.
In other words, the fact that Singh could have been targeted in Pakistan for the hanging of Kasab and Guru, was something that not only the Indian authorities should have foreseen (and taken up proactively with their Pakistani counterparts), but also one that the Pakistani authorities should have prepared for. After all, if, after the attack on Singh, India can increase security for Pakistani prisoners lodged in its own jails without Islamabad’s prodding, then why couldn’t the Pakistanis have done the same for their Indian inmates?
Kot Lakhpat prison officials were duty-bound to ensure the safety of Singh as much as they were responsible for the security of the other inmates under their charge. It is imperative that the Pakistani Government investigate and punish the officials for such serious dereliction of duty — especially since Singh is not the first Indian prisoner to have come under attack while being under its watch. In January this year, Chambail Singh, a native of Pragwal in Jammu & Kashmir, was reportedly beaten to death by prison staff at the same Kot Lakhpat jail. Chambail Singh had been convicted on charges of espionage and was serving his time at the time of the attack. The Indian High Commission in Pakistan was only informed of his death, and no other details were given. More than four months later, it is still unclear if a post-mortem was ever conducted — requests for such reports from even Union Minister for External Affairs Salman Khurshid have been ignored — and if any action was taken against the errant officials.
Against this backdrop, the Pakistani Government must also look into allegations that prison authorities were in fact actively involved in the brutal attack on Sarabjit Singh as well. These allegations gain further credence when viewed alongside Indian intelligence reports that the attack on Singh was ordered by the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba and the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. If this was indeed the case, then it is unlikely that the attack could have been carried out without a wink-and-a-nod from the prison authorities, if not their bosses higher up in the establishment.
The fact is that both India and Pakistan have historically been guilty of using prisoners from the other country as pawns in their own petty political games. Take Sarabjit Singh’s case as an example: Convicted for his alleged role in four bomb blasts in Lahore and Islamabad in 1990 in which 14 people were killed, Singh was sentenced to death in 1991.
But in 2008, the new Government in Pakistan was willing take into consideration his repeated pleas that he had been a victim of mistaken identity and that his sentence should be commuted to a life term — which would also be seen as a goodwill gesture to India. But then President Pervez Musharraf turned down Singh’s mercy plea, although the convict’s hanging was postponed for an indefinite period.
It was only much later in 2012 that Singh’s sentence was finally commuted by President Asif Ali Zardari. At that time, Singh was in fact supposed to be released as part of a prisoner swap deal, but at the last moment, another Indian convict was freed, resulting in much confusion in the process.
There are similar stories playing out on this side of the border too. Pakistani scientist Khalil Chisti, for example, spent two decades imprisoned in India on murder charges, until he was released following an order of the Supreme Court on December 12, 2012. Prior to that, the President of Pakistan had appealed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for Chisti’s release on humanitarian grounds, but that had done little to help his case.
The way things stand now, there is little that can be done to help Sarabjit Singh’s condition. However, one can only hope that his story and his suffering will move the establishments in both India and Pakistan to seriously reconsider the manner in which they treat each other’s prisoners. Singh may have been accused of terrorism against the state of Pakistan, but there are many others who are lodged in Pakistani and Indian jails for lesser crimes — such as straying across the border or fishing in alien territory. They deserve a better deal.
(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on May 2, 2013.)
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