Pak jail superintendent records statement

SARABJIT, A NATIVE OF BHIKHIWIND VILLAGE IN TARN TARAN , WAS KILLED BY PRISONERS IN LAHORE’S KOT LAKHPAT JAIL IN 2013

LAHORE: A Pakistani jail superintendent on Tuesday recorded his statement before an additional district and sessions judge, Lahore, in the murder case of Indian national Sarabjit Singh who was killed by fellow prisoners in 2013.

Two Pakistani death row prisoners — Amir Sarfraz, alias Tamba, and Mudassar — in May 2013 had attacked Sarabjit, 49, in the Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore and killed him. “Additional district and sessions judge Amin Haider on Tuesday recorded the statement of the Kot Lakhpat Jail superintendent in the murder case of Sarabjit Singh. Two more witnesses have been summoned for the next hearing next week,” an official at the jail told PTI. He said the court proceedings in this case have been resumed after several months.

The judicial commission led by justice Mazhar Ali Akbar Naqvi of the Lahore high court had investigated the Sarabjit murder case before the trial began at the Lahore sessions court. Naqvi had recorded the statements of some 40 witnesses in the case and submitted his report to the government, which is yet to make public its findings.

The one-man commission had also issued notices to Sarabjit’s relatives through the foreign ministry to record their statements and to produce any evidence they have regarding his death. Sarabjit’s family had not recorded their statements.

In their statements to the commission, Tamba and Mudassar confessed to the crime and said they killed Sarabjit as they wanted to avenge the death of people in Lahore and Faisalabad blasts allegedly carried out by him. Both suspects have been indicted in the murder case.

Sarabjit, a native of Tarn Taran, was awarded death sentence for spying charges and killing at least 14 Pakistani citizens in bomb blasts in Punjab province in 1990. His family, however, said: “He was ta victim of mistaken identity and had inadvertently strayed across the border.”