Sarabjit Singh declared brain dead

Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh was on ventilator support in a Lahore hospital after a brutal attack by fellow inmates at Kot Lakhpat Jail on April 26, 2013, with conflicting reports over whether he was brain dead.

Indian officials and his family said doctors had told them he was brain dead, while Pakistani doctors denied it, saying he was critical but not brain dead. Sarabjit's lawyer Awais Sheikh told a news channel from Lahore that Sarabjit's sister had expressed the family's desire to return to India.

"After the doctors told her about Sarabjit's condition, she first told me that they wanted to go back today (Tuesday). But later, in their hotel, they said that they will go back tomorrow (Wednesday) morning," Sheikh told the channel.

Sarabjit Singh, 49, was admitted to a Lahore hospital in a critical condition after the attack. He had been on ventilator support ever since.

India on Monday appealed to Pakistan for Sarabjit's release, even while a medical board in Pakistan said that he would continue to get treatment in Pakistan and not be shifted out.

The Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi had asked Pakistan to take a "sympathetic and humanitarian" view on Sarabjit.

Dalbir Kaur, Sarabjit's wife Sukhpreet Kaur and daughters Swapandeep and Poonam crossed from the Attari-Wagah border checkpost into Pakistan on Sunday afternoon to visit him in the Lahore hospital.

He had been on death row in Pakistan since 1990 after being convicted by Pakistani courts for bomb blasts in Lahore and Multan, which left 14 people dead.

Sarabjit's family claims he is innocent, and that he crossed over to Pakistan in August 1990 in an inebriated state and was arrested there.

Police in Pakistan, however, claimed that Sarabjit Singh, known there as Manjit Singh, was involved in terrorist strikes.

Source: The Hindu BusinessLine