Sarabjit's family secures permission to meet him

The anxious wait for the family of Sarabjit Singh is finally over as they have secured the permission to meet him in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail.

"The home department of Punjab province has given us permission to go and meet Sarabjit and we will shortly be leaving for Lahore," said, Sarabjit's sister Dalbir Kaur.

Sarabjit's wife Sukhpreet Kaur and his daughters Swapandeep and Poonam along with his sister Dalbir Kaur and her husband Baldev Singh, arrived in Lahore on Wednesday from India crossing the Wagah border.

They are on a seven days stay to Pakistan to meet Sarabjit and appeal the Pakistan government to grant him clemency. Sarabjit awaits a death penalty for his alleged involvement in four bomb attacks in Punjab province in 1990 that killed 14 people.

Meanwhile, Pakistan President's office today said that no mercy petition for the condemned Indian national is currently pending with it. President Pervez Musharraf's spokesman Maj Gen (retired) Rashid Qureshi said that a mercy petition received by the presidency some time ago from Sarabjit's family had been forwarded to the interior ministry.

"There is nothing (related to Sarabjit Singh's case that is currently pending) with the presidency," said Qureshi. The spokesman made it clear that he was speaking on behalf of the presidency and not the government.

The interior ministry will have to consider the petition from Sarabjit's family and pass on its recommendations to the Prime Minister's secretariat. "The President acts only on the recommendations of the Prime Minister," Qureshi added.

Former Pakistani human rights minister Ansar Burney had on Monday said that he had submitted a fresh mercy petition on behalf of Sarabjit to Musharraf, asking for his death sentence to be converted to life imprisonment as the case against him was "weak".

However, Qureshi made it clear that no fresh petitions had been received by the President's office.

The execution of Sarabjit was deferred for 30 days by Musharraf last month so that Pakistan's new government could review his case following an appeal for clemency from the Indian government. (PTI)

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