Questions remain on Sarabjit flip-flop

Jun 28, 2012 |

Islamabad

Was it a U-turn under pressure from fundamentalist forces or was it a mix-up of identities?
These questions remained unanswered on Wednesday, a day after it was widely reported both in Pakistan and India that death row convict Sarabjit Singh, who has been in Pakistani jail for the last 22 years was being released after President Asif Ali Zardari had commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. The news played big on both Pakistan and Indian TV channels on Tuesday night which debated the topic threadbare.
Indian TV channels spoke to Mr Zardari’s spokesperson Farhatullah Babar and he confirmed to them that Sarabjit was being released.
Then there was a bombshell around midnight with Babar saying it was not Sarabjit but another Indian prisoner Surjeet Singh, who was being released.
Before this sudden about-turn, the news that Sarabjit, convicted for alleged involvement in series of bombings in Pakistan in 1990 despite his protestations of innocence, was being released was greeted with anger by fundamentalist parties.
The Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) condemned the move to free Sarabjit.
JI chief Syed Munawar Hasan said that Mumbai terror attacker Ajmal Kasab had been sentenced by India without any evidence and Pakistan had not provided him legal aid.
The JuD, the front organisation for terror outfit LeT tweeted, “Not a single demand for Samjhota terrorists and innocent Pakistanis in India jails, instead convicted terrorist Sarabjit allowed to live #shame”.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/165827" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-06361c391e3b5ad22d9d64302892b3ff" value="form-06361c391e3b5ad22d9d64302892b3ff" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="84304252" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>