Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has taken “very seriously” the case of Indian death row prisoner Sarabjit Singh, who has been in a jail for two decades, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said.
Mr Krishna raised 49-year-old Sarabjit’s case with Zardari during a meeting in Islamabad on Friday.
“The President has taken it very seriously and he instructed his office to look into the details,” Mr Krishna told Indian reporters during an interaction here on Saturday evening.
“Our approach is on a humanitarian basis, especially the fact that he has spent almost 20 years in a Pakistani jail,” he said.
The Pakistan government will have to consider factors like Mr Sarabjit’s age and health while deciding on the issue, Mr Krishna said.
Mr Sarabjit was convicted for alleged involvement in a string of bombings in 1990 that killed 14 people. His family says he is a farmer and the victim of mistaken identity.
Mr Sarabjit’s relatives said he strayed into Pakistan in an inebriated state three months after the bombings.
Following the intervention of the Pakistan People’s Party-led government, Mr Sarabjit’s execution was put off indefinitely.
He is currently being held at Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore and recently submitted a fresh mercy petition to President Zardari.
This is a high level of hypocrisy by the Indian State and its people. On one side they are upset that why Ajmal Kasab has not been hanged till date while on other hand they want the deadly terrorist Sarabjit who killed 14 people, to be released. Why this double standard on Terrorism? India's Supreme Court has given the verdict against Kasab and in the same way Pakistan's Supreme Court has given verdict against Sarabjeet. So now there is no place for arguments of mistaken identity etc etc. Why Pakistan should release a deadly terrorist who killed 14 of its citizens? Will India ever consider to release Ajmal Kasab considering his young age or on humanitarian grounds ? Or is it that India's definitions of a terrorist is that only a Pakistani or Muslim can be a terrorist and no Hindu or Sikh can be terrorist even if he has killed 14 people. Its a matter of shame that Pakistani establishment is again ducking out and being defensive before India.
S M Krishna should immediately be stripped off his portfolio as
he fumbled to match his Pakistani counterpart, Hina Rabbani Khar and her
exquisite articulation of Pakistan’s position of all issues at the joint
press briefing in Islamabad on Saturday, saying that “there were no
conditions” to Manmohan Singh’s visit to Pakistan; and the charge of the
Ministry of External Affairs be entrusted to Ajay Makan whose roar made
even a lion-like Karan Thapar fumble for words.
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