Sarabjit Singh dies; family wants him declared a 'martyr'

Lahore/Islamabad: Sarabjit Singh, the Indian death row prisoner in Pakistan, died in a Lahore hospital early on Thursday of injuries sustained in an assault by inmates of a high-security jail, officials said. “I received a call from the doctor on duty (at Jinnah Hospital) at 1 am (1.30 am IST) informing me that Sarabjit is no more,” Mahmood Shaukat, the head of a medical board that was supervising Sarabjit Singh’s treatment, told PTI. Officials of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad said they had been informed by officials of Jinnah Hospital about Sarabjit Singh’s death. Shaukat said that authorities were yet to decide on conducting an autopsy of Sarabjit Singh’s body. Asked if the government’s permission would be required to conduct  an autopsy, he said: “At the moment I have no idea.” No decision had been made about handing over the body to Sarabjit Singh’s relatives or to Indian authorities, he said. “These matters will be worked out according to the directions from the government,” he said. [caption id=“attachment_744459” align=“alignright” width=“380”]  Sarabjit Singh. PTI[/caption] On Wednesday, official sources in Lahore had said that Sarabjit Singh had slipped into a “non-reversible” coma and this could lead to “brain death”. His reading on the Glasgow Coma Scale, which indicates the levels of consciousness and damage to a person’s central nervous system, had dropped to a “critical level”, the sources said. Sarabjit Singh’s heart was beating “but without brain function” because of the extensive head injuries he sustained when he was assaulted on Friday, a source had said. Sarabjit Singh had at that time been completely unresponsive and unable to breathe without ventilator support, the source had added. Sarabjit Singh, 49, sustained severe injuries, including a fractured skull, when at least six prisoners attacked him in the barracks at Kot Lakhpat Jail on Friday afternoon . He was hit on the head with bricks and had been comatose in hospital since then. Police have booked two death row prisoners – Amer Aftaband Mudassar – for the attack. They reportedly told investigators that they had attacked Sarabjit Singh because he had allegedly carried out bomb attacks in Lahore. No action has been taken so far against jail officials for failing to provide adequate security to Sarabjit Singh. Sarabjit Singh had been convicted of alleged involvement in a string of bomb attacks in Punjab province that killed 14 people in 1990, and  had spent about 22 years in Pakistani prisons. His mercy petitions had been rejected by the courts and former President Pervez Musharraf. In 2008, the Pakistan People’s Party-led government put off Sarabjit Singh’s execution for an indefinite period. Sarabjit Singh’s family says he was the victim of mistaken identity and had inadvertently strayed across the border in an inebriated state. Sarabjit Singh’s wife Sukhpreet Kaur, daughters Poonam and Swapandeep Kaur and sister Dalbir Kaur, who went to Lahore on Tuesday to see him, have returned to India. Following the rapid deterioration in Sarabjit Singh’s condition, New Delhi had requested that he be immediately released so that he could be treated in India or a third country. Pakistan had said it was “positively considering” the request to repatriate him. ‘Declare Sarabjit  Singh a martyr’ Sarabjit Singh’s family has demanded that his body be handed over to them and that he be declared a “martyr”. In an appeal to the Union Home Ministry, the family demanded that Sarabjit Singh’s body be cremated with full state honours, according to Raj Kumar Verka, Vice Chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes. They have also demanded that the Centre take full responsibility of the family, Verka said. The government will hold a meeting on Thursday to consider these demands, he added. Verka said that Sarabjit Singh’s family members, who were now in New Delhi, were in a state of shock after receiving news of his death. He said he had forwarded the demands to the Union Home Ministry and was in touch with Central leaders, including Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde. PTI