Islamabad: Sarabjit Singh, the Indian awarded capital punishment in Pakistan, has been removed from a prison cell for death row inmates in a Lahore jail.
Geo News, the private Pakistani TV news channel, reported that the transfer perhaps indicates that the Sarabjit would not be hanged. The Pakistani government has not made a statement yet, PTI reports.
Sarabjit has been found guilty of serial bomb blasts in Lahore and Multan that killed 14 people 1990. Sarabjit’s hanging was deferred on April 29 for 21 days and later until further orders following a campaign by his family members and rights activists.
His wife, sister and daughters visited Pakistan in April and appealed for his release. Sarabjit insists he is a poor farmer who strayed into Pakistan from his village located close to the border. He says he is a victim of mistaken identity.
Pakistan Law Minister Farooq Naek, who met Sarabjit in prison, said earlier this month that he was considering options of releasing Sarabjit. ‘We are studying the case and looking into—if there are any possibilities of releasing Sarabjit,’ Naek had said.
Pakistani human rights activist Ansar Burney, who earlier played a an important role in the release of another Indian prisoner Kashmir Singh, recently asked the Pakistan government to commute all death sentences, including that of Sarabjit, to life imprisonment, saying a majority of death row prisoners had been wrongly convicted.
(With inputs from PTI and IANS)
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