[Assam] [assam] Indian prisoner to be released from Pak jail after 30 years

[bhuban.baruah]

Times of India.(May 8, 2012)


PTI | May 8, 2012, 01.42PM IST


LAHORE: Indian national Surjeet Singh, who has been languishing in Kot 
Lakhpat Jail in this eastern Pakistani city for over 30 years, is 
expected to be freed within three months, his lawyer has said.

The Punjab government on Monday told the Lahore high court that Surjeet 
had completed his term and would be released.

Through a written report submitted in the court of Justice Manzoor 
Ahmad Malik, the government said Surjeet was given the status of an 
internee last month.

The judge was hearing a petition seeking the release of Surjeet filed 
by his Pakistani lawyer Awais Sheikh, who is also counsel for Sarabjit 
Singh, an Indian on death row after his conviction for alleged 
involvement in bomb blasts in 1990.

Sheikh pleaded that Surjeet had been held in the Pakistani jail even 
after completing his term of life imprisonment.

Relying on the Punjab government's reply, the judge adjourned the 
hearing till July 9.

The lawyer told PTI that he had filed the petition for Surjeet's 
release at the request of his family. "I met the son and daughter of 
Surjeet in Amritsar and they told me that their father was languishing 
in Kot Lakhpat Jail," he said.

Sheikh said Surjeet was captured near the border on charges of spying 
during the era of military ruler Zia-ul-Haq.

He was given the death sentence but then President Ishaq Khan commuted 
it to life imprisonment.

"Surjeet completed his term in 2004. The high court has said there is 
no law that allows a prisoner to be detained after he completes his 
sentence," Sheikh said.

In a separate development, Justice Umar Ata Bandial of the Lahore high 
court has disposed of another petition filed by Sheikh seeking the 
release of another Indian prisoner named Madan Lal