Death row Indian spy returns home after 35 years

NANGAL CHURA, (India)— Indian National Kashmir Sindh, who was released from Kot Lakhpat jail on Monday after 35 year detention, arrived in his village Nangal Chura, India on Tuesday evening where he rejoined his relatives and friends amid tears of joy.
Earlier, Kashmir Singh was handed over to Indian officials at Wagah border on Tuesday afternoon. Federal caretaker Minister for Human Rights Ansar Burney who was earlier scheduled to go India with the released Kashmir Singh changed his program and bode farewell to him at Wagah border.
Emotional scenes were witnessed on this occasion at Wagah border. Indian officials and Ansar Buney exchanged greetings. Strict security measures were taken and large number of media was present on both sides of the border. Before his departure while talking to media, the death row prisoner Kashmir Singh thanked Pakistani nation especially President Musharraf for his kind gesture of awarding him pardon.
Burney said that he hoped India would also show the positive gesture in response of Kashmir Singh’s release and would take measure for the release of Pakistanis imprisoned in Indian jails. An Indian man, freed by Pakistan after languishing on death row for suspected espionage for 35 years, was given a hero’s welcome when he returned home, witnesses and officials said Tuesday.
Kashmir Singh, 61, waved to Pakistani journalists and well-wishers before walking across the border crossing between rivals India and Pakistan at Wagah in northern Punjab state to be greeted by his family and relatives. “It is a new birth for me after being released from the Pakistani jail,” Singh — dressed in a white shirt and camel-coloured trousers — told reporters at the border post before crossing to the Indian side, where his wife and children were waiting.
“The credit of my release entirely goes to (Pakistan Human Rights Minister) Ansar Burney who during his visit in the jail spotted me, put up my case before the Pakistani Government and procured my release. “For me Ansar Burney is an angel. I have not enough words to thank Burney,” Singh said. As she waited at Wagah to see her husband, Singh’s emotional wife Paramjit Kaur told reporters: “I am very, very happy to see this day.
“When we spoke last night (Monday), he told me he was just waiting to come back home.” An excited group of well-wishers garlanded Singh and showered him with rose petals as he met his family briefly before being taken away by India’s paramilitary Border Security Force and intelligence agencies for a “debriefing,” reports said. Afterwards his family was set to take back to his home village in Punjab’s Hoshiarpur district.
“Yes, I was accused of espionage and smuggling. But I did not do anything of that sort and they found nothing on me when they arrested me,” Singh told reporters after his release on Monday in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, where he was being held. Singh was arrested in the garrison city of Rawalpindi in 1973 at the age of 26 and sentenced to death by a military court.—Agencies