Sarabjit’s family appeals to Musharraf for clemency

Amritsar, Mar 12 (ANI): Sarabjit Singh’s family on Sunday appealed to Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf for clemency, even as they renewed their threat to self immolation, if he was hanged.

Giving a month’s time to India and Pakistan to set Sarabjit free, his family members including his sister Dalbir Kaur, his wife and two daughters staged a sit-in here, today and appealed to Musharraf to intervene and secure his (Sarabjit’s) release.

Slogan-shouting residents, holding placards, also joined them.

“We hope that President Musharraf will keep his promise to do whatever possible for Sarabjit’s release, following which our government could come into action and hold talks with Pakistani authorities for my brother’s release. If this does not happen and then a day would come when we would be forced to immolate ourselves,” said Kaur.

Sarabjit Singh was sentenced to death in 1991 for allegedly spying and carrying out four bomb blasts in Pakistan that killed 14 people. Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed the first of the four review petitions filed on his behalf.

Elsewhere, in Meerut, a social group held a demonstration, seeking Sarabjit’s release.

Locals signed their names in blood on a big banner and pasted it on the wall.

“We demand that Sarabjit, who is lodged in a Pakistan jail should be released. We appeal to President Musharraf to release Sarabjit keeping in mind the good relations, the two countries share,” said Dinesh Talwar, an activist.

Singh’s defence team filed four separate petitions for review, one for each of the four bomb blasts, after the Pakistan Supreme Court rejected his appeal against his conviction last year.

His lawyer, Rana Abdul Hameed, said in Islamabad that a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court dismissed the first petition on technical grounds, saying it had been filed too late.

Singh’s family says he is a poor farmer from a border village who accidentally wandered into Pakistan in 1990 in an inebriated state.

Pakistani officials say Singh was arrested while trying to slip back into India after carrying out the bomb attacks.

The Indian government has pressed for clemency for Singh but has not made a formal request on his behalf. (ANI)

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