Pakistan’s whole manner in dealing with issues after the recent murderous attack on Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh does not make for confidence in our neighbour’s ability or intent to play fair. Indeed, its only normal act so far has been to issue visas to members of Singh’s immediate family to enable them to visit the ICU at Lahore’s Jinnah Hospital where the prisoner lies in deep coma.
The family had hoped that Singh would be permitted to be transferred to a high-quality medical facility in India so there may be the smallest chance of saving his life. Not unexpectedly, the request was turned down on Monday, but the manner of doing so was one of wooden, bureaucratic rejection. Even if the prisoner’s current condition allowed him to be moved (which is extremely doubtful), the laws may not have permitted this. Nevertheless, a humane way of looking at the question might have been for the Pakistani authorities to suo motu inform India that they would have no difficulty if New Delhi desired to fly in a neurologist to Lahore.
The attack in a high-security prison, intended to kill the Indian as confessed by those who have been booked for it, raises questions. The Pakistan foreign ministry spokesman initially said the attack was the result of a “scuffle”. The attackers’ version makes it clear this was wide off the mark, and may just have been the shoddy explanation for an assault mounted with the knowledge of the prison authorities acting under instructions.
For close on 25 years that Singh has been in the Lahore jail, he has not been set upon in this murderous fashion. Besides, earlier in January, another Indian in the same jail, Chamel Singh, was also killed. In light of this, the jailers should have been more watchful if they had a mind to be so. That was evidently not the case. The attackers’ statement that they were patriotic Pakistanis who wanted to kill Singh because his so-called terrorist acts had taken Pakistani lives is just too pat after all these years. What seems more likely is that those who call the shots in Pakistan want to generate hatred at the people-to-people level at the behest of anti-India extremist outfits like Jamaat-ud-Dawa so that it becomes difficult to normalise even official ties. It is this outlook that also explains the beheading of Indian border guards last January.