The body of Kirpal Singh, the Indian prisoner who died in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail on April 11 was brought to India via the Attari-Wagah border on Tuesday.
An autopsy was performed on the body in the government Medical College Hospital, Amritsar after which Singh’s family was allowed to take the body for the last rites. Though the Pakistani authorities had informed that Kirpal Singh died of a heart attack, his family had demanded a thorough probe into the cause of his death.
Earlier his family had told The Hindu that they were thankful for the help extended by the Ministry of External Affairs to bring his body back from Lahore. “We were informed by the district authorities in Gurdaspur that Pakistan would send his body through the Wagah border by Tuesday noon,” Ashwini Kumar, Singh’s nephew told The Hindu over telephone from Gurdaspur.
Kirpal Singh had been imprisoned in Pakistan since 1992 after he was arrested on charges of bombing of the Faisalabad railway station in 1991 and was sentenced to death for spying and terrorist activities against Pakistan.
He had been imprisoned in the high security Kot Lakhpat Jail of Lahore from where he had been writing regularly to his family in Gurdaspur. His last letter reached his family after his death in which Kirpal had expressed his desire to return home.
Members of Kirpal Singh’s family had also staged protests at the Wagah border and against the Pakistan government because of the delay.
Kirpal Singh’s death follows the 2013 death of Sarbjit Singh in the same prison premises.
Both Sarbjit and Kirpal were accused of terrorist activities against the Pakistani State and were sentenced to death. Kirpal Singh was reportedly acquitted later on by the Lahore High Court. However he remained imprisoned till his death.
