Reiterating its request for releasing Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh on humanitarian and sympathetic grounds, India on Wednesday asked Pakistan to at least send him to a ‘third country’ for ‘proper medical treatment’ if not India.
It expressed concern over Sarabjit’s medical condition as indicated by reports made available by doctors treating him at Jinnah Hospital in Lahore. India’s high commissioner to Pakistan also met Pakistan’s foreign secretary urging him to release Sarabjit on humanitarian grounds. Sarabjit has slipped into a ‘non-reversible’ coma and doctors in a hospital in Lahore are struggling to save his life. The deterioration in Sarabjit’s condition could lead to ‘brain death’, sources said.
A source said Sarabjit’s heart is beating ‘but without brain function’ because of the extensive head injuries he sustained when he was assaulted by prisoners at Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore on Friday.
Meanwhile, Sarabjit’s wife Sukhpreet Kaur, daughters Poonam and Swapandeep Kaur and sister Dalbir Kaur, who had gone to Lahore on Monday to see him, returned to India on Wednesday. Sarabjit’s family accused the government of doing little for the death-row prisoner battling for his life after a brutal assault.
Dalbir Kaur is reaching the national capital on Wednesday night to meet the Union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde. “I would be meeting the home minister at 10 am on Thursday. After that I will go to external affairs ministry. We just want Sarabjit to be brought back to India,” Kaur told dna.
