Consular access to Sarabjit restricted
Sarabjit’s family were allowed to see him through a window from outside the intensive care unit in the hospital
LAHORE/ISLAMABAD: The distraught family of a comatose Sarabjit Singh was yesterday allowed to see him at the hospital where he is being treated after a brutal assault in a Pakistani jail.
A senior doctor of the state-run Jinnah Hospital said that Sarabjit’s sister, wife and two daughters were allowed to see him through a window from outside the intensive care unit as it was “not good for the patient as well as attendants to get close to each other”.
Asked if Sarabjit’s relatives could have been allowed to get close to him after wearing protective clothing and masks, the doctor said, “We cannot take any chances with regard to the health of our patients. Sarabjit Singh is not in a condition that a visitor can be allowed to sit by him.”
A source said the hospital’s administration and authorities were cautious about Sarabjit’s security.
Cautioned
“Someone cautioned the authorities that if the four ladies were allowed to enter the ICU where Sarabjit Singh has been lying in a coma, they might create a scene and cause further embarrassment for the government,” the source said.
Though the government had said it would allow one of Sarabjit’s family members to stay in a room within Jinnah Hospital, the four women left for a hotel on the Mall Road after visiting the ICU.
Sarabjit’s relatives arrived in Pakistan through the Wagah land border crossing this afternoon after being granted visas by the Pakistan high commission in Delhi.
Sarabjit’s wife Sukhpreet Kaur appealed to Pakistani authorities to send her husband back to India for better treatment.
Pakistan has restricted consular access to Indian national Sarabjit Singh who is in a coma in a Lahore hospital, prompting In- dian officials to take up the issue with their Pakistani counterparts, sources said yesterday.
Two officials of the Indian high commission were allowed to visit Sarabjit, who is in an intensive care unit in Lahore’s Jinnah Hospital, only for a few minutes early on Saturday. Subsequently, the Pakistani side informed the Indians that the consular access granted on Friday was meant for only one visit, sources said.
The Indian side has taken up the issue with their Pakistani counterparts, saying that Indian officials should be allowed unhindered access to Sarabjit in view of his condition, the sources said.
Sarabjit, 49, was admitted to Jinnah Hospital on Friday after he was attacked by at least six other prisoners within his barrack at Kot Lakhpat Jail. Sources said he was hit on the head with bricks and his face and torso cut with weapons fashioned from spoons and pieces of ghee tins.
Sarbjit was convicted by a Pakistani court for alleged involvement in a string of bombing in Punjab that killed 14 people in 1990. His family says he is the victim of mistaken identity and had inadvertently strayed across the border in an inebriated state.