India - Pakistan: Dream gone sour

New Delhi
2 May 2013

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Pakistan policy is in tatters after an Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh's murder in a Lahore jail sparked anger and outrage across India.

Coming as it does after the mysterious death of an Indian prisoner Chamel Singh in a Pakistani jail on January 15 and the beheading of an Indian soldier and killing of another soldier on January 8, Prime Minister Singh increasingly finds himself at odds with the national mood and public opinion on relations with Pakistan.

For one who has fought off opposition from within his own party and from other quarters to invest in improving relations with Pakistan since he came to power in 2004, Prime Minister Singh has had to bow to public sentiment and voice his anguish at Pakistan's behaviour.

"... the criminals responsible for the barbaric and murderous attack on Sarabjit Singh must be brought to justice," the Prime Minister said, adding that "the government of Pakistan did not heed the pleas of the government of India, Sarabjit's family and of civil society in India and Pakistan to take a humanitarian view of this case."

Relations with Pakistan came under a strain early this year with the beheading of an Indian soldier. The public outrage over the incident forced the Prime Minister to assert that “there can’t be business as usual with Pakistan” and that the onus for fostering peace with India was squarely on Pakistan.

If the first term of Prime Minister Singh's government between 2004 and 2009 was taken up by his single-minded pursuit of the India-US civil nuclear cooperation agreement, the second term was expected to see him focus his energies and political capital on a rapprochement with Pakistan.

The Prime Minister, who was born in Gah village in what isnow Pakistan, was not averse to visiting that country in his quest for a lasting legacy but recent developments have ensured that he cannot undertake that journey any time soon.

Death sparks outrage in India

Indians woke up Thursday to the news of Sarabjit Singh's death, who was on death row for terrorism and espionage in Pakistan. He died at 12.45 am on Thursday in a Lahore hospital. He was brought there comatose on April 26, after six other prisoners attacked him in jail, using bricks to inflict mortal injuries on him.

"It is a cold blooded murder," screamed Sushma Swaraj, the leader of Opposition in the lower House of Parliament. Her party,the BJP, accused the government of not trying hard enough to secure Sarabjit Singh's release while he was alive. It also demanded downgrading of bilateral ties with Pakistan.

Other Opposition parties targeted the government for its inability to get Pakistan to transfer Sarabjit Singh to India or a third country for medical treatment and for not taking up the cause of Indian prisoners languishing in Pakistani jails.

Sarabjit Singh's sister Dalbir Kaur, who spent many years campaigning for his release, urged political parties to unite for a strong collective response to Pakistan.

Parliament condoled his death in a resolution.

Concern in Pakistan

Incidentally, the murder of Sarabjit has come at a time when Pakistan is in the midst of a campaign for electing a new parliament. It goes to the polls on May 11.

Najam Sethi, a journalist who is currently the caretaker chief minister of the Pakistani province of Punjab, told CNN-IBN that there was negligence in the case of murderous attack on Sarabjit. However, he denied any link to the February 9 hanging of Afzal Guru in India, who was convicted for attacking Parliament in 2001.

“I can say there was negligence but I am not aware of anything else,” Sethi said when asked about a letter Sarabjit reportedly wrote to his family apprehending a threat to his life.

An internal inquiry and a judicial probe has been ordered into the matter.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has demanded action against all those who played any part in the assault on Sarabjit Singh. Its chairperson Zohra Yusuf called upon Islamabad and Delhi to take urgent measures to prevent the incident from undermining bilateral ties and to improve the lot of detainees from the other country in each other’s prisons.

In a statement issued on Thursday, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said: "Not even the most naive person can believe that a prisoner like Sarabjit in a death cell inside a jail can be targeted in such a brutal assault by prisoners without the knowledge and support of prison guards and the authorities.

"This is far more serious a crime than allowing someone like General Pervez Musharraf to escape from court. It was no secret that Sarabjit faced more threats than other prisoners on account of the charge that he was convicted of and yet his security was so completely compromised. He died when members of the joint Pak-India Judges Committee were visiting Pakistan in order to assess the conditions of detention of Indian prisoners in Pakistani jails."

The statement went on to say that "those in Pakistan who take pride in their vengefulness must feel some shame today, if they are capable of that."

The Commission was worried that Sarabjit’s death might undermine the hard work done by both countries to normalise relations.

"They will have to go out of their way to undo the damage that the murder and the manner that it took place in has done. The need to expeditiously conclude a judicial inquiry to bring all those who are involved to justice cannot be stressed enough. If the two countries begin to treat each other's prisoners with some compassion even now instead of exposing them to the worst of treatment reserved for prisoners in their jails, then some good would still have come from Sarabjit's brutal murder."

Although Pakistani police has charged two prisoners with Sarabjit's murder, conspiracy theories abound in India about how Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI may have had a hand in the murder.

"I don't have any doubt that the attack on Sarabjit was pre-planned and was the handiwork of ISI and jail officials though other people attacked him. Now, two prisoners are being made sacrificial goats," said Mehbood Elahi, a former Indian spy, told PTI in Kolkata.

Sarbjit Singh (49) was given the death sentence in 1991 for bombings a year earlier in Pakistan's Lahore and Faisalabad in which 14 people were killed. His family has said he was innocent.