Sarabjit's family to return to India for advice

Islamabad/Amritsar: Indian national Sarabjit Singh’s family members will return to India tomorrow to seek advice on his treatment in the wake of a deterioration in his condition, Sarabjit’s lawyer Awais Sheikh has said. Sheikh said Sarabjit’s sister Dalbir Kaur, wife Sukhpreet Kaur and two daughters would go back to India through the Wagah land border crossing at 11 am tomorrow. [caption id=“attachment_742617” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sarabjit Singh’s family will return to India. PTI. [/caption] “They plan to consult people in India on what to do next,” he told PTI after visiting Sarabjit at Lahore’s Jinnah Hospital tonight. “The doctors told us there has been no improvement in Sarabjit’s condition. They changed his medication but this had no effect,” Sheikh said on phone from Lahore. Earlier, Sheikh said Dalbir Kaur was asked by the local media if she had agreed to take Sarabjit off ventilator support and she “had said no”. Sheikh further said he would petition the Lahore High Court tomorrow to allow some Indian doctors to come to Pakistan to assist in the treatment of Sarabjit. “This will be a good gesture and it will address whatever reservations Sarabjit’s family and the people of India have about his treatment,” he said. Meanwhile, National Commission for Scheduled Castes vice chairman Raj Kumar Verka today said he was in constant touch with Dalbir on the phone and she has alleged that the treatment of Sarabjit is not up to the mark. Verka said that Dalbir told him that Pakistani authorities had backed out of their earlier promise and were not allowing her to stay with Sarabjit in the hospital. She said even the rest of Sarabjit’s family members (wife and two daughters) were not allowed to visit him in the hospital. Verka quoted Dalbir as saying that the authorities hardly allowed her to meet Sarabjit for five minutes throughout the day. Kaur has alleged that in jail a conspiracy was hatched to kill Sarabjit and now in the hospital, authorities were following the same line of action of what they did in the jail, Verka said. Sarabjit’s family members had arrived in Pakistan on Sunday, two days after the 49-year-old Indian death row prisoner sustained severe injuries, including a fractured skull, during a brutal assault by prisoners in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail. PTI