International - India & World

Islamabad sees a conspiracy

ISLAMABAD: The claim by Kashmir Singh who returned home after 35 years in a Pakistani prison that he spied for India was a conspiracy against good relations between the two countries and the humanitarian cause for freeing prisoners on both sides, said Pakistan Human Rights Minister Ansar Burney.

The Minister, who worked overtime to get Kashmir Singh a presidential pardon from a death sentence, sounded thoroughly let down as he told The Hindu the claim would queer the pitch for the release of other Indian prisoners in jails in Pakistan.

But, said the Minister, he was still determined to try and save Sarabjit Singh, the other Indian on death row convicted on espionage charges, even though the last door of appeal appears to have already closed on him.

President Pervez Musharraf is said to have rejected his mercy petition last week.

Interior Ministry officials are confirming, but only unofficially, that the retired General Musharraf rejected Sarabjit’s petition a day after he pardoned Kashmir Singh.

Whether General Musharraf made the studied decision to trade off one mercy petition for the other is not clear, but Mr. Burney said Kashmir Singh’s statements in India had made the task of saving Sarabjit Singh “very difficult.”

“Why has Kashmir said these things? I am getting so many calls, and so many hate messages on my phone that I freed an Indian spy. But I’m still going to try and save Sarabjit. This is a humanitarian cause and I will not be deterred,” Mr. Burney said.

The Minister alleged that Kashmir Singh’s statement “reeks of a conspiracy.”

“I don’t know who is behind this, but is it possible that if he was really a spy, the Indian agencies would have allowed him to speak to the media like this? In all my experience, this is the first time I have heard of something like this. I think someone who did not like the feeling of love generated between the two countries with the release of Kashmir Singh, who is against the cause of prisoners’ release, they have made him say all these things,” Mr Burney said.

He said that if the intention was one-upmanship against Paksitan, Kashmir Singh’s conduct was showing India in poorer light than the one he had walked out from. “We set a humanitarian example by releasing a man despite the fact that he was a convicted spy,” Mr. Burney said.

Kashmir Singh also accused the Indian government of making no efforts for his release. Indian officials here said that as soon as they learnt of his presence in a Sahiwal jail back in 2006 from a media report in India, they wrote to the Foreign Office seeking consular access, but did not get a reply.

But, the officials said, as he was a death sentence prisoner, it was doubtful that they would have been allowed to meet him even if the Pakistan government had acknowledged his presence to them.

Only last month, a committee of retired judges set up by the two countries considered the prisoners’ issue in detail and made several recommendations to free as many of them as quickly as possible. Indian officials and Mr. Burney said the Kashmir Singh episode was certain to have a negative impact on this effort.

Mr. Burney, a Minister in the caretaker Cabinet and established human rights activist in Pakistan, was already under fire in the media here for getting an Indian convicted of spying released while doing nothing for the hundreds of missing Pakistanis allegedly picked up as terror suspects by the country’s intelligence agencies, or for four ousted Supreme judges and their families imprisoned in their homes in an undeclared house arrest.

“Now when I raise my voice for the release of any Indian prisoner, they will shout against me even more loudly,” said Mr. Burney.

An official confirmed that the Interior Ministry has sent a notification to the Provincial Punjab government giving two months time for making arrangements for the execution of Sarabjit Singh.

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