The lawyer appointed to defend India’s Sarabjit Singh, who has been languishing between life and death in Pakistani prisons, wants New Delhi to make a more active intervention to secure the early release and repatriation of the prisoner.
Mr Awais Sheikh, who is carrying a necklace of assorted beads and a small memento that Sarabjit handcrafted inside for Congress president Sonia Gandhi while on death row at Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail, hopes to accompany the prisoner’s elder sister Dalbir Kaur to meet the Indian government functionaries in Delhi.
Currently in Chandigarh to attend the Saarc folklore festival, Mr Sheikh said he has absolutely no doubt that Sarabjit Singh’s conviction by a Pakistani trial court for carrying out the 1990 bomb attacks at Lahore and Multan was premised on “incorrect or mistaken” identity.
“This is evidently a case of mistaken identity. The attacks were in fact carried out by a man called Manjit Singh and I have submitted ample evidence to prove this at the Supreme Court of Pakistan,” said the lawyer who is currently awaiting the verdict of the final mercy petition he submitted on behalf of the prisoner.
Mr Sheikh claimed he had irrefutable evidence that “the actual culprit Manjit Singh, who had well known links with terror groups, entered Pakistan in the guise of journalist. He escaped from Pakistan and is later known to have been arrested in Canada where he spent three years in prison.” According to him, intelligence agencies are aware that Manjit eventually converted to Islam and married a Pakistani woman.
“The President (Asif Ali Zardari) can acquit or convert Sarabjit’s death sentence to a life term,” he said suggesting that the Indian government could bring pressure on Mr Zardari on the matter.