ISLAMABAD—Pakistan denied an Indian media report that it had assured New Delhi that it would not execute an Indian convicted 14 years ago of spying and of carrying out a series of bomb attacks.
“We have not given any such assurance,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Muhammad Naeem Khan said, contradicting a report in the Indian daily, The Hindu.
Sarabjit Singh was convicted of spying and involvement in bombings in Pakistan that killed 14 people, and the Supreme Court last month upheld the death penalty handed to him in 1991. Singh’s lawyer plans to ask Pakistan’s Supreme Court to review its decision and he also has the option of appealing to President Pervez Musharraf for clemency.
Tuesday’s edition of The Hindu quoted unnamed Indian officials as saying India had been told the case had become an “emotive issue” and the sentence would not be implemented.
The controversy comes at a time when India and Pakistan are trying to speed a slow moving peace process. The Indian government has pressed for clemency for Singh ahead of talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan’s Musharraf in New York this month.
Sarabjit Singh’s family says he is a poor farmer from a border village who accidentally wandered into Pakistan in 1990. Supporters elsewhere in India have protested, signed petitions and gone on hunger strikes to save the condemned man. Death sentences are often handed down but rarely carried out in Pakistan.
Our Correspondent adds from New Delhi: Pakistan has assured New Delhi it will not execute an Indian convicted of spying and a series of bomb blasts after his death sentence sparked outrage and demonstrations across India, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.
India had been told Singh’s case had become an “emotive issue”” and the sentence would not be implemented and that Singh may even be granted clemency and freed, The Hindu daily said, quoting anonymous Indian officials.
“We have not given any such assurance,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Muhammad Naeem Khan said, contradicting a report in the Indian daily, The Hindu.
Singh’s wife and some other family members have threatened to commit suicide if he is executed and supporters across India have protested, signed petitions and some have gone on hunger strikes.
Singh’s family says he is a poor farmer from a border village who accidentally wandered into Pakistan in 1990. The controversy comes at a time when India and Pakistan are trying to speed a slow moving peace process. The Indian government has pressed for clemency for Singh ahead of talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in New York this month.