Pakistan gives India daily consular access to Sarabjit Singh

Pakistan on Wednesday agreed to India’s request of daily consular access to injured prisoner Sarabjit Singh, CNN-IBN reported. The Pakistani government is also positively considering India’s request to shift Sarabjit to a third country for proper medical attention, according to reports. India on Wednesday asked Pakistan to move injured Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh to a third country for proper medical treatment. Indian High Commission officials petitioned Pakistan to release Sarabjit on humanitarian and sympathetic grounds, and said this was no time to invoke legal and bureaucratic reasons. "Every endeavour should be made to save Sarabjit’s live." “We have also alternatively proposed that Shri Sarabjit Singh should be sent to a third country for proper medical treatment,” spokesperson for Ministry of External Affairs Syed Akbaruddin ‏tweeted out. “We feel this is not the time for invoking legal and bureaucratic reasons for not taking steps to save a human life,” he said. Meanwhile, returning from Pakistan, the family of Sarabjit Singh accused the Indian government of inaction in getting him the best possible treatment and said the Prime Minister should resign for his failure to address the issue. Criticising the government’s inaction, Dalbir Kaur, Sarabjit’s sister, said, “I would like to tell Manmohan Singh to resign.” Kaur said that the Prime Minister should resign for his failure to take up Sarabjit’s case in time. She denied reports that the Indian prisoner was brain dead and said that he had shown enough signs to prove that if he received quality medical treatment he would survive. “Sarabjit’s hand and eye still moving. However, I hope that since I have left that Pakistan doctors and police don’t do something to him,” she told reporters at the Wagah border check post. Sarabjit’s sister also accused the Pakistan hospital of failing to treat him properly. “He is not being treated properly in the hospital. They have not shown me a single report related to Sarabjit Singh,” Kaur said. “If I don’t ask about Sarabjit Singh’s health who will? Manmohan Singh or Zardari won’t check about his health,” she said. She also demanded that he either be brought back to India for further treatment or taken abroad where he could be treated by a team of Indian doctors. Kaur said she would be going to Delhi to meet with Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid to tell them that she had no faith in the treatment he was getting in Pakistan. Sarabjit’s family had gone to Pakistan on 28 April to see him, after he was admitted to Lahore’s Jinnah Hospital in a critical state following an assault by fellow prisoners last week in the city’s Kot Lakhpat jail. Meanwhile, reports say Sarabjit’s lawyer will file a petition in Lahore High court asking for Indian doctors to treat him in Pakistan as Pakistan has already ruled out sending Sarabjit abroad for treatment. Sarabjit lawyer said that it is Pakistan’s duty to issue regular medical bulletins of his health, but they have remained silent. Earlier, reports said the condition of Sarbajit Singh further deteriorated Tuesday night though doctors had not declared him brain dead, official sources said. The sources told PTI that Sarabjit’s condition continued deteriorating through the day and his blood pressure was being maintained with support. Sarabjit had entered a “critical phase” and his chances of survival were very slim, the sources said. The doctors treating Sarabjit had brought the deterioration in his condition to the notice of Pakistani authorities and his family, the sources said. Earlier in the day, Allama Iqbal Medical College principal Mahmood Shaukat, the head of a four-member medical board this is supervising Sarabjit’s treatment, too confirmed that his condition had deteriorated. “He continues to be serious but has not been declared brain dead,” Shaukat told PTI. “In our latest investigation, there was no sign of improvement (in Sarabjit’s condition). Rather, his condition further deteriorated,” he said. Sarabjit is in a special intensive care unit of the state-run Jinnah Hospital. The doctors had changed some medications after the deterioration in his condition. A second CT scan on Sarabjit too did not reveal any signs of improvement, Shaukat said. “The Glasgow Coma Scale of the patient is being monitored on a daily basis,” he added. A source had earlier said that Sarabjit’s condition was measured as 5 on the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), which indicates the level of damage to a person’s central nervous system. The lowest possible GCS score is 3 while the highest is 15. The GCS assesses level of consciousness after a profound head injury and Sarabjit’s reading indicated deep unconsciousness, making his treatment a major neurosurgical challenge for the medical board. Sarabjit, 49, sustained several injuries, including a skull fracture, when six prisoners attacked him in Kot Lakhpat Jail last week. He was hit on the head with bricks and his neck and torso cut with sharp weapons. Sarabjit was convicted of alleged involvement in a string of bomb attacks in Punjab province that killed 14 people in 1990. His mercy petitions were rejected by the courts and former president Pervez Musharraf. The outgoing Pakistan People’s Party-led government put off Sarabjit’s execution for an indefinite period in 2008. Sarabjit’s family says he is the victim of mistaken identity and had inadvertently strayed across the border in an inebriated state. With agency inputs