Death of a terrorist in jail brawl and unwarranted over-reaction of media

Sarabjit Singh, a terror convict and a RAW agent, has finally succumbed to head injuries sustained by him during a brawl with other prisoners in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail. He was awarded death penalty for killing 14 Pakistanis is terrorist attacks but he got an extended lease of life due to legal hitches which is commonplace in Anglo-Saxon law inherited by both India and Pakistan from their colonial masters. Two Indian spies, Kashmir Singh and Surjeet Singh released from Pakistani jails on humanitarian grounds also confirmed in their interaction with the media that Sarabjit, a RAW agent, was involved in terror activities inside Pakistan. This incident has taken place in Punjab jail when Sethi is the CM, in common perception a more Indian than Indians themselves.

Incidentally, Pakistani law does not allow presidential pardon for terrorists otherwise Sarabjit would have been a free man long ago.

A glance at Indian newspapers would reveal that Sarabjit’s death is the story of the year. The front pages of almost every newspaper contain screaming headlines and he is being made out a hero. Hero he was; for Indians because he was used by Indian establishment to destabilize Pakistan through a series of bomb blasts. But the most inexplicable reaction has come from the Pakistani government, the media and the so-called civil society. They have condemned his death and rightly so because every prisoner has a right to security within the jail premises. Period. No jail authority can prevent prisoners’ scuffle and it is very common even in the American jails.

The so-called liberals and a section of media are rightly upset because they have to follow the line of Indian media and Indian establishment to establish their liberal credentials which they have always been doing. The funniest reaction, however, has come from Pakistani Foreign Office which is virtually begging Indians not to take this issue seriously and hoping against hope that Pakistani prisoner in Indian jails would not be affected by this incident. Pakistani Foreign Office also hopes that this incident would not affect the relations of the two countries.

Pakistani, Kashmiri and Muslim prisoners in Indian jails are treated in a most inhuman way. A Pakistani soldier who spent four decades in Indian jail returned home with his tongue cut. But this was not made an issue by Pakistani media and even the government.

The inmates brawl is more frequent in Indian jails than anywhere in the world. The prisoner who has been convicted of terrorism becomes an object of hate. Only last year a terror suspect Mohammad Qateel Siddiqui, 27, was found murdered inside the high security Yerawada Jail of Pune. He was found strangled, allegedly after a heated brawl with two other inmates, Alok Bhalerao and Sharad Mohol. Siddiqui was arrested by the Delhi police in December 2011 for his alleged involvement in various attacks, including the bombing of the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore in April 2010 and the blasts at the Jamia Masjid in Delhi in 2010.

Pakistani government and the media should introspect for a moment; is this issue worth media attention it is being given. Forget about your Indian counterparts; they would try to extract maximum advantage out of this issue and browbeat you. Don’t forget; Indians needed this issue at this moment because they wanted to distract the attention of their people from a more serious issue of Chinese incursion into Ladakh, an area which Indians claim to be theirs.

Related articles

• Pak hands Sarabjit’s body to Indian officials (thehindu.com)
• India PM angered over ‘spy’ death (bbc.co.uk)