Despite pressure from the right-wing groups, Pakistan “will not” hang Indian death row prisoner Sarabjit Singh to give a “tit-for-tat” response to India for hanging Afzal Guru a couple of months after executing Ajmal Kasab, official sources said.
“This is not like expelling diplomats, this is more than that. We can’t execute people in tit-for-tat responses,” a senior government official told this newspaper citing the government’s decision, hours after the hanging.
“Sarabjit Singh’s mercy appeal is with the President (Asif Ali Zardari) and he is the authority to say yes or no. The President cannot accept or reject mercy appeals keeping in view what is happening in India. After all they hanged Guru after some legal procedures,” he added.
The official, close to Mr Zardari, said the President is obviously under pressure from the right-wing parties to reject Sarabjit’s mercy appeal as they have hanged Ajmal Kasab and Guru in quick succession.
“But he will consider the matter more seriously than that. He will see what is in the interest of Pakistan,” added the official.
Meanwhile, interior minister Rehman Malik said Pakistan wants good relations with India on the basis of equality. “Hanging of Afzal Guru is the decision of the Indian court. Hence I will not comment on it,” he added.
Mr Malik said Pakistan wants meaningful dialogue with India and is determined to eliminate the menace of terrorism.
A spokesman of the right-wing Jamaat-e-Islam (JI), however, said the government must act and give response to India. “We must not stay silent. If they are hanging people why can’t we hang the terrorists detained here,” he said.
The JI spokesman said peace with India should be on equality basis and “we should not beg for it”.
Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Yasin Malik, who is on a private visit to Pakistan, said India had violated human rights. “They did not even inform Guru’s family about the hanging. They have exposed their claims about democracy and human rights,” he said. He announced the start of a hungerstrike against the hanging as a mark of protest.
Meanwhile in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, hundreds of protesters rallied in Muzaffarabad, burning the tricolour and chanted slogans.
, including “down with India, down with India’s farce democracy, we will continue Guru’s mission”.
“The state’s flag will fly half-mast during the three-day mourning, which started from today,” Murtaza Durrani, a state government adviser, said.