Sarabjit Singh – an Indian on death row in Pakistan after his conviction for bomb attacks – has appealed for the commutation of his death sentence or the reopening of his case so that he can prove his innocence, a media report said Friday.”Sarabjit has appealed to President Asaf Ali Zardari to commute his death sentence to a life term. He said he would also appeal to the chief justice of Pakistan to reopen his case as he has much evidence to prove his innocence,” his lawyer Owais Sheikh said, the Urdu daily Jang reported.
Sheikh was talking to media persons Thursday along with Sarabjit’s sister Dalbir Kaur, who had finally met her brother, lodged in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail, after 21 years.
The one and a half hour long meeting between both was emotional, as both burst into tears on seeing each other.
Dalbir tied a ‘rakhi’ on her brother’s wrist and gave him the home-made food and new clothes she had brought for him, while Sarabjit gave her some articles he had manufactured in the jail.
Dalbir had come to Pakistan June 6 to meet her brother and discuss his case with his lawyer. However, the jail superintendent Monday didn’t allow her to meet Sarabjit.
Following this, she filed a petition in the Lahore High Court Tuesday through Sheikh. The court granted her the permission to meet Dalbir twice during her one-month stay in the country.
Sarabjit, who has been languishing in Pakistan jails for more than 19 years, has been convicted for staging four bomb blasts in Lahore and Multan in 1990 that claimed 14 lives. He has been awarded death sentence.
Sarabjit’s family claims he inadvertently crossed into Pakistan in August 1990 in an inebriated state and was arrested there. But police in Pakistan claim Sarabjit Singh, who is known there as Manjit Singh, was involved in acts of terrorism.
