Sarabjit Singh, who was on death row, spent 22 years in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail after being convicted of espionage and terrorism before an attack by inmates killed him in 2013. Today, after 11 years, Amir Sarfaraz Tamba, one of the attackers was gunned down by unknown bike-borne assailants in Lahore, the local media reported.
Who Was Sarabjit Singh?
Sarabjit Singh Attwal was born in Bhikhiwind – along the India-Pakistan border in Punjab’s Tarn Taran district. He and his wife Sukhpreet Kaur had two daughters – Swapandeep and Poonam Kaur. His sister Dalbir Kaur lobbied relentlessly to secure his release from 1991 till his death in 2013.
He was tried and convicted by the Supreme Court of Pakistan for a series of bomb attacks in Lahore and Faisalabad that killed 14 bystanders in 1990. He was also convicted of terrorism and spying. However, India maintained that Sarabjit Singh was a farmer who had strayed into Pakistan months after the bombing.
In 1991, the court sentenced him to death. However, Pakistan postponed the sentence several times.
The Attack
Mr Singh languished in the high-security prison until April 26, 2013, when he was attacked by other inmates, including Amir Sarfaraz Tamba. Tamba was reportedly a close aide of Lashkar-e-Taiba’s founder Hafiz Sayeed.
He was rushed to Lahore’s Jinnah Hospital with severe brain injuries, a broken backbone, and in a coma after he was attacked on the head with sharp metal sheets, iron rods, blades bricks, and pieces of tin by a group of inmates. Doctors had warned his recovery would be unlikely.
His sister and wife were allowed to visit him in the hospital and they returned to India after doctors said his coma was irreversible.
On April 29, 2013, India appealed to Pakistan to release Mr Singh on humanitarian grounds or let him come to India for medical care. But Pakistan repeatedly turned down the requests.
Death
Six days after the attack, he died of a heart attack in the hospital on May 1, 2013.
His body was brought to India by a special aircraft and Indian doctors conducted a second autopsy on him in Patti near Amritsar. Doctors concluded he was attacked with the intent “to kill the person”.
Mr Singh’s vital organs, including the heart and kidney, were removed, doctors said, adding that it may have been done as part of the first autopsy in Pakistan.
The initial autopsy report reportedly said that Mr Singh suffered massive internal bleeding because of a head injury. “It seems that a five cm-wide injury on the top of Sarabjit Singh’s skull contributed to his death,” a member of the medical board that conducted the autopsy in Lahore said on condition of anonymity.
The doctor reportedly said he also had some minor injuries on his face, neck, and arms.
