The Hindu : Front Page : Sarabjit Singh’s family gets visa to visit Pakistan

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Thursday, Apr 17, 2008
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Sarabjit Singh’s family gets visa to visit Pakistan

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Islamabad has provided visas to family members of Indian national Sarabjit Singh, who is on death row in Pakistan.

The family plans to meet President Pervez Musharraf and other senior members of the newly elected government in Pakistan to seek clemency for Sarabjit on grounds that he is innocent and that he has already spent 17 years in prison.

He has been sentenced for alleged involvement in serial bomb blasts in Lahore that killed 14 persons in 1990. However, the family claims he inadvertently crossed the Indian border and was arrested in a case of mistaken identity.

The visas would not automatically mean an audience for the family with the President, said sources here. “It is up to the government there as to how far the family’s requirements would be met.”

Privately, Foreign Office officials in both countries said they would not like to be stampeded by the media on this issue; they would instead discuss an exchange policy for prisoners who have spent inordinately long periods in jail. They point out that Pakistan’s gesture would build up a conducive atmosphere prior to the visits by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, who will hold exploratory talks with the new set-up in Islamabad.

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