Sarabjit Singh should be pardoned: Pak PM

RAY OF HOPE: Pakistan Prime Minister gives the first official indication that Sarabjeet's death sentence might be commuted.

    

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New Delhi: There is hope yet for Sarabjit Singh, Indian prisoner sentenced to death in Pakistan. Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani has advised President Pervez Musharraf that Sarabjit Singh should be given a pardon. Gillani was speaking exclusively to CNN-IBN's Karan Thapar.

“I have advised to the President that he should stop his execution and it should be reviewed by the Ministry of Interior, Foreign Affairs, Law Justice & Human Rights,” he said.

He also said that the matter is being reviewed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“They will think on those lines. They will consider whether the case is fit or whether the case is not fit & they'll take the decision,” he added.

Talking about the new move former Human Rights Minister from Karachi Ansaar Burney said, “I think this is a great gesture shown by the Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani as well as by the President Musharraf, I can say good luck to Sarabjit.”

“I have mentioned each and everything in the mercy petition and after that I was the first to tell you that nobody is going to hang him. I would like to congratulate the family as well as the nation of India that a good development is going to take place. I would also like to thank CNN-IBN and other media for their kind support in the matter of human rights,” he added.

Reacting to the information Sarabjit's sister Dalbir Kaur said, “First of all I would like to thank God. It is because of their blessings, this time I am relieved.”

While Sarabjit’s daughter Poonam said, “We are very happy. God has answered our prayers. When my father comes home we will have a celebration.”

“Like Lord Rama who returned home after 14 years of and welcomed by lamps, we will do the same for our father. We will celebrate his home coming,” said his daughter Swapandeep.

Meanwhile, a group of human rights activists recently appealed to Musharraf to grant mercy to Sarabjit Singh.

''Sarabjit's capital punishment may be reduced to any other alternative punishment like life imprisonment,'' a mercy petition sent to President Musharraf on behalf of Global Human Rights Council said.

The petition recalled the words of Pakistan's founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah in 1938 at Lahore on the death sentence to Shaheed Bhagat Singh'' God alone can take life, because he along gives it. The death sentence is abominable as the crime itself''.

Sarabjit is being held captive in the Kot Lakpat jail in Lahore after he was declared guilty of being involved in four bomb blasts in Lahore and Multan in 1990 that killed 14 people. He has already spent 18 years of his life in the jail.

Arguments for releasing Sarabjit swung in his favour after a key witness Shaukat Salim, whose father and other relatives were killed in the attack, said that Sarabjit was not the one who planted the bomb. Earlier, Salim had said that he made the statements implicating Sarabjit under pressure from the Pakistani police.