Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf has pardoned Kashmir Singh, the alleged Indian spy who has been languishing in Central Jail, Lahore, for the past 35 years.
Pakistan president signed his release petition on Thursday
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf has pardoned Kashmir Singh, the alleged Indian spy who has been languishing in Central Jail, Lahore, for the past 35 years after he was sentenced to death for espionage after his arrest in Rawalpindi in 1973.
Musharraf signed the petition for the release of the 61-year-old on Thursday. The interior ministry has received the release order and Pakistan’s federal caretaker minister for human rights Ansar Burney is likely to sign it by Friday. Indian high commission sources in Islamabad said Singh is likely to be released on Friday itself.
The human rights ministry in Pakistan had earlier requested Musharraf to commute Singh’s death sentence and allow him to go home as a goodwill gesture. Burney, who also runs the Ansar Burney Trust, located Singh at Central Jail.
Singh was sentenced to death on espionage charges by a court in Lahore. The oldest of three brothers and a sister, Singh had married his childhood sweetheart at the age of 16. They had two sons and a daughter and had been married for 10 years when Singh was arrested. He has not seen his family members since then. According to Fahad Burney, acting chairman of Ansar Burney Trust, Singh’s family had been located in the Hoshiarpur district of Punjab after the trust management approached the Indian government.
According to Fahad Burney, investigations conducted by the trust revealed that Singh was not an Indian agent, but a sepoy with the Amritsar police. However, after losing his job in 1972 on disciplinary grounds, he began to smuggle goods to Pakistan. He and one of his accomplices were arrested in Rawalpindi. His accomplice was sentenced to 10-year imprisonment and repatriated to India 12 years ago. Singh, who was 26 at the time of his arrest, has since spent time in various prisons in Pakistani Punjab including 14 years in Sahiwal, 10 years in Multan and sometime in Miawali and Lahore prisons.
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