Pakistan on Wednesday handed over the body of Indian prisoner Chamel Singh – who died in custody on January 15 – to officials of the High Commission of India after conducting the post mortem earlier in the day. The body was then handed over to Singh’s family at the Wagah border.
As of now, the cause of Singh’s death remains unclear as it will take a while for the post mortem report to be handed over to the Indian diplomatic mission in Islamabad. As per procedure, the report will be routed by the Punjab Home Department to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be passed on to the Indian High Commission.
Though initially India was informed that Singh had died in custody without citing of any reason, a lawyer who was in prison at the same time told the media that the Indian had been beaten up by prison officials and taken to hospital where he died. The police maintained that he had died of cardiac arrest.
Following media reports, an enquiry was ordered into the cause of his death but no details of the findings have been revealed to the Indian diplomatic mission till date. Singh was arrested in 2010 at the Sialkot border with India and accused for spying. A resident of Pargwal district of Jammu & Kashmir, he was sentenced to five years imprisonment and has been in the Lahore Central Jail since the summer of 2012.
