An Indian ex-serviceman who was languishing in a Lahore jail for 24 years on spying charges was found dead in his cell on Monday, even as Pakistan authorities booked the former naval commander, Kulbhushan Jadhav, in their custody for over a month, for terrorism.
According to media reports from Pakistan, Kirpal Singh, 50, was found dead in his cell at Kot Lakhpat Jail in the early hours of Monday. According to his relatives in Gurdaspur, he was with the Indian Army for eight years. Ashwani Singh, Kirpal Singh’s nephew, told The Hindu that his uncle had written several letters saying he was being tortured in the jail. In his last letter in February this year, he said the jail authorities had locked him up in a “dark cell.”
“My uncle wrote to us on February 10 this year, wherein he said he was beaten up and some people were torturing him… He asked us to seek the government’s help for his release. We wrote to everyone in the government but never got any audience,” said Mr. Ashwani Singh.
The family of Kirpal Singh will be in Delhi on Wednesday to meet Home Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. “We did not get to see him alive. The government should at least help us in getting back his body. We know he has been murdered in jail. The government should get to the root of this,” said Mr. Ashwani Singh.
He said his uncle had, in a drunken stupor, inadvertently crossed the border in 1992, from their village in Gurdaspur. “One day, we got a letter from Pakistan that he has been arrested on terror charges,” he said.
“We used to send him gifts like shawls and food items. We are not sure whether they reached them or not,” Mr. Ashwani Singh said.
According to reports from Pakistan, Kirpal Singh was sentenced to death in a serial bomb blasts case in Pakistan’s Punjab province. Later, he was acquitted of bomb blast charges by the Lahore High Court but his death sentence was not commuted for unknown reasons.
Pakistani officials said his body was shifted to Jinnah Hospital, Lahore, for autopsy. A judicial magistrate recorded the statements of some prisoners.
PTI quoted an official as saying: “The inmates of the jail stated that he complained of chest pain and died instantly.” Jail police station head Nafees Ahmed said the authorities had called the police to shift the body to the dead house. This is the second instance in recent memory of an Indian accused of spying and lodged in a Pakistani jail dying of alleged torture. In April 2013, Sarabjit Singh, on death row, was murdered by his fellow prisoners at Kot Lakhpat Jail.
Booked for terrorism
Pakistani media reports said the Counter Terrorism Department of Quetta filed a case against Kulbhushan Jadhav, who Pakistan claims is a RAW agent, accusing him of terrorism. The case was registered on a complaint by the provincial home department on the directives of the federal government, reports said, indicating the high level of Pakistani interest in the strange case of Mr. Jadhav, who India claims was into business in the Iranian port city of Chhabahar since he left the navy. Pakistan has booked Mr. Jadhav on terrorism, foreign act violation and sabotage charges.
According to Pakistan, Mr. Jadhav was arrested from Balochistan but Indian officials suspect he was kidnapped from the Chhabahar port.
