The brutal attack on Sarabjit Singh, an Indian on death row in a Pakistani jail, has taken place at a time when an Indian delegation is present in Pakistan to review conditions of Indian prisoners in jails in that country.
The four-member Indian jurists’ panel, which arrived in Pakistan only on Friday, was planning to meet Sarabjit in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail. After the brutal attack by jail inmates, Sarabjit is battling for life in a hospital with his family here claiming a conspiracy to kill him.
Top sources said the Indian panel, comprising retired Supreme Court and high court judges, will seek a report from Pakistani authorities on the brutal assaulting of Sarabjit and once again ask the Pakistan government to release him. The panel had met Sarabjit Singh during their last visit to Pakistan in 2011. Top sources said that after speaking to Sarabjit then the team had been concerned about his condition and the threat to him from other inmates. The panel had asked the Pakistan government to expedite a decision on his mercy plea. They had also asked the Pakistani authorities to take measures to ensure humane conditions for Indian prisoners.
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In k’taka, sonia urges people to vote for change
Gururaj A. Paniyadi
Mangalore, April 27
A day after AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi said Karnataka had set the “world record in corruption”, Congress president Sonia Gandhi arrived in Mangalore on Saturday where she issued a call for “badalavane (change)”.
Straight from a whirlwind stop of the former BJP stronghold of Chikmagalur, and describing the BJP’s misrule as its “darkest years”, she urged Mangalore to repeat its shock rejection of the BJP in recent urban local body elections and the Udupi-Chikmagalur bypolls in the forthcoming Assembly polls. “By making Congress win the bypolls in Udupi-Chikmagalur and in ULB elections, people have shown that they want change. Make that change happen on May 5,” she said. Earlier, she called on people to “vote for stability”, stressing on the BJP’s track record of changing three CMs in five years.