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The Sarabjit Singh affair|Sarabjit Singh dies in Lahore: TV reports


Tapioca

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He is in a Pakistani jail facing death penalty. The Indian government is working hard to save him. His wife made this statement to the media yesterday : “Myself and my daughters would never like Sarabjit freed in exchange for any hardcore Pakistani terrorist lodged in Indian jails... Nothing is above the nation and we can’t go against the interests of our motherland.†That, sir, is patriotism. http://www.hindu.com/2008/03/20/stories/2008032060470100.htm

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But not sure if the comment ' Nothing is above the nation ' and that level of patriotism is a good thing or a bad thing.
I think you have to take it for what it is...simple. A simple womans devotion and loyalty to a country she sees as her and her peoples cradle and her deep affection for it. That she feels so, is some statement in itself mitigating against what you are warning against in your observation above. Also, it's probably her way of saying that one should not always put ones own need ahead of the requirements of others in the country i.e. one may need to sacrifice for the greater good. I don't think she was appealing to blind jingoistic-patriotism when she made the statement. My opinion. You may differ. But I think I am close to the truth on this one.
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Just goes to show why Muslim invaders over the years, and Pakistan in general, are terrified of facing Sikhs on the battlefield. With this kind of spirit, such battles have usually been routs. These guys don't fear death, and have won India, or what passed as India in the medieval days, many battles against invaders. Was it Guru Gobind Singh who refused to compromise, and saw his two sons being buried alive by one of the Mughal kings? (C'mon, history buffs). So, yeah, I believe the lady. And once again i doff my hat to the gallant Sikhs of our land.

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“Myself and my daughters would never like Sarabjit freed in exchange for any hardcore Pakistani terrorist lodged in Indian jails... Nothing is above the nation and we can’t go against the interests of our motherland.”
Cant believe she said that, to be honest. Frankly, I am only used to govt ministers so readily trading hardcore terrorists for their kidnapped daughters and sons. This is something totally new, totally strange.
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Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh attacked in Lahore jail http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/04/26/pakistan-india-prisoner-sarabjit-singh-idINDEE93P0B320130426

Sarabjit Singh was hospitalised with a serious head injury, a doctor said, after two fellow prisoners attacked him in Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore. "Sarabjit was having tea with fellow prisoners Muhammad Muddasar and Amir, also condemned for death sentence in murder cases. They exchanged hot words with Sarabjit and attacked him with bricks and blades," jail official Munawar Ali said. Singh was arrested in Pakistan in 1991 and sentenced to death for spying and carrying out four bomb blasts that killed 14 people. His family says he is innocent. Four years ago, Pakistan's then-president Pervez Musharraf stayed the execution after appeals for clemency from India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan have fought three wars since the partition of British-ruled India in 1947, but they began a peace process in 2004. Despite better relations, the neighbours remain deeply suspicious of each other. India blamed Pakistani militants for carrying the 2008 attacks in Mumbai that killed 166 people over three days and raised questions over the involvement of Pakistani security services.
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http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/sarabjit-attacked-in-lahore-jail-with-bricks-plates/article4657735.ece?homepage=true
Indian death-row prisoner Sarabjit Singh sustained serious head injuries when he was attacked by other inmates in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail on Friday afternoon. He was shifted to Jinnah Hospital where he is said to have regained consciousness around 8 p.m. but a late night report in The Express Tribune said he had slipped into a coma and was on ventilator support. Jail official Munawar Ali said Singh was attacked by two death-row prisoners while they were having tea. Apparently, an argument ensued after which the other two prisoners attacked Sarabjit Singh with bricks and blades. However, his lawyer Awais Sheikh contested this; saying that, being a death row prisoner, Singh was always escorted by a prison guard whenever he was brought out. With the hospital area where he was being treated made out-of-bounds for journalists, details about his condition were scarce to come by. The Indian High Commission in Islamabad has sent two officials to Lahore to provide him consular access. The two officials were expected to reach Lahore some time during the night. The mission has also been informed that Singh’s condition was serious but doctors were working round the clock to save him. Mr. Sheikh said Singh had told prison officials that he was being threatened by some inmates ever since India executed Afzal Guru for the attack on Indian Parliament in 2001. “In my last meeting with him about 20 days ago, he had even named some of them in my presence to prison officials.” Following Guru’s execution, demands for reciprocal treatment to Sarabjit Singh had increased with the Jamat-ud-Da’wah taking the lead on this count. The assistant superintendent of the jail, the head warden and the warden have been suspended for negligence. Sarabjit Singh is the second Indian prisoner to be attacked in Kot Lakhpat Jail this year. On January 15, Chamel Singh — a native of Jammu — succumbed to injuries sustained under mysterious circumstances within the prison premises. Local media reports said the preliminary postmortem report indicated that he had been tortured to death but this was denied by the Punjab Prisons Department. Rafiq Chaudhry, Senior Superintendent of Kot Lakhpat Jail, told the state-owned Associated Press of Pakistan that Chamel Singh had suffered a stroke in prison and died on way to hospital. Sarabjit Singh has been in prison since 1990 for the serial blasts in Lahore and Faislabad. He was sentenced to death a year later. Last year, a mix-up over names, resulted in the media wrongly reporting that he had been pardoned by President Asif Ali Zardari whereas it was actually 80-year-old prisoner Surjeet Sarabjit Singh who was to be released. He had been sentenced to death during the Zia years but benefited from a general amnesty granted by late premier Benazir Bhutto. He had completed his life sentence in 2004 but had been languishing in prison till 2012 when he was released as the Law Ministry said that keeping him imprisoned amounted to illegal detention.
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They are reporting Sarabjit is "Nazuk" I can be dead sure he must have already died/Killed by now and the news channels don't know anything about it. They are just reporting what is being told to them by the pakistnai officials there who are offcourse giving false info.

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I wonder if we ever attempted getting him out of there ? Is the Paki judiciary this pathetic ?

Death sentence In 1991 Sarabjit was given death sentence under the Pakistan's Army Act.[3] His sentence was upheld by the High Court and later by the Pakistan Supreme Court. The Supreme Court dismissed his petition to review his death sentence in March 2006 as Sarabjit's lawyers at the time failed to appear for the hearing. Sarabjit said that his appeal had been dismissed by the Pakistan Supreme Court for non-prosecution only because of lack of interest by his former lawyer. On 3 March 2008, the erstwhile President Pervez Musharraf rejected his mercy petition. Issues with prosecution In 26 April 2008, the key witness Shaukat Salim caught on tape retracted his statement. Salim's father and other relatives had been killed in the attack. In court Salim had provided testimony that Sarabjit was the one who had planted the bomb but later on accepted that he had done so under pressure from the Pakistani police.[8] However Sarabjit's lawyer Abdul Rana Hamid told Indian News Channel CNN-IBN that Salim's statements have no legal standing as they were never recorded in court. Pakistani human rights activist Ansar Burney had claimed that none of the four FIRs lodged in regard to the bombings contained Sarabjit’s name or his description. Sarabjit was arrested on the night of 30 August 1990, at Kasur Border for illegally crossing the India-Pakistani border. But after eight days, the police implicated him in the terrorist bombings. He had not been arrested red handed.[8] Burney also pointed out that a single magistrate had recorded the statements of the witnesses in all the four cases, one in Faislabad and three in Lahore. In spite of fact that the cases were lodged in four different police stations and two different districts. He said four different magistrates should have recorded the statements. None of the statements recorded in front of the magistrate was taken under oath. Sarabjit was also not been presented in an identity parade in front of a magistrate. Rather he was brought in front of witnesses, in the absence of a magistrate, and the police informed the witnesses that he was the culprit. This was also said by Shaukat Salim, a key witness of the case.[8] A British lawyer Jas Uppal who is campaigning for his release pointed[9] to several loopholes in the trial.[13] According to her His identity was never verified or proved in court and no forensic evidence was provided at his trial to link him to the bomb attacks. The trial was conducted in English - Mr Singh does not speak or understand English - and an interpreter was not provided. There are other serious questions over the fairness of his trial, including allegations that he was tortured in custody and forced to confess" The trial was fast tracked and the main witness has repeatedly changed his version of events.
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I wonder if we ever attempted getting him out of there ? Is the Paki judiciary this pathetic ?
Yeah, India's judiciary to roz desh par chaar channd lagaati hai. :hysterical: Anyway if this guy was indeed responsible for the death of civilians as part of a targeted attack, his incarceration is well justified.
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