Who was Sarabjit?
Sarabjit Singh was an Indian farmer born in Bhikhiwind, Punjab in 1963. He used to work on other's fields to earn his living. Photography and wrestling were two of his main interests. He belonged to a happy family. Sarabjit and his wife Sukhpreet Kaur had two daughters named Poonam and Swapandeep Kaur.
Sarabjit's Arrest
Sarabjit was arrested by Pakistan Police on the night of 30 August 1990, when he mistakenly crossed the Indo-Pakistani border.
He was then alleged by Pakistan to be involved in the terrorist attacks of 1990 in Lahore and Faisalabad. Pakistan also stated that he was an Indian spy and a RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) agent, none of which was true.
His sister, Dalbir Kaur wandered around for nine months searching for him, little did she know that he was arrested by Pakistan for the crimes he never committed.
After nine months Dalbir Kaur received Sarabjit's letter in which he informed her that he has been arrested in Pakistan as Manjit Singh; who was originally behind all those blasts in Pakistan.
Manjit Singh got arrested in Canada and was locked up for 3 years and no one knows what happened after.
Prosecution and some important revelations
After the arrest of Sarabjit, a video was released by Pakistan in which he confessed that he is Manjit Singh and he was involved in all those attacks. But later on, it was revealed by an Indian origin British lawyer, Jas Uppal, that Sarabjit was tortured and forced to confess those things, also, that the confession never took place in the court of law and the video was recorded somewhere else.
Days passed and prosecution continued. He was given the death penalty. However, the date of execution kept on moving forward.
His sister knocked countless doors of politicians of both the countries but the officials remained indifferent, perhaps because he was a common man and not a celebrity.
For 22 years, he was locked up for no reason at all. His family was allowed to see him only twice in those 22 years. Their only communication was the occasional exchange of letters.
It was also revealed by Jas Uppal that the prosecution took place in English which Sarabjit neither spoke nor understood.
Many mercy petitions were filed by Sarabjit's lawyers but none were granted. However, the execution was finally put off in 2008, giving relief to his family and lawyers.
Death
All the efforts of his sister and family went in vain when suddenly on 26 April 2013, Sarabjit was attacked by some of the fellow prisoners and jailers with blunt weapons such as metal sheets and rods in the jail itself. Some sources tell us that those prisoners revenged the execution of Afzal Guru (terrorist involved in the Indian Parliament Attack 2001) in India.
Sarabjit was then admitted to Jinnah hospital in Lahore, in a comatose state. He was struggling between life and death when his family asked the officials to send Sarabjit back for better medical treatment but Pakistan ignored all the requests of sending Sarabjit back to India and declared him brain dead on May 1, 2013.
Autopsy
The first autopsy/post-mortem was conducted at Jinnah hospital, a report of which was not provided by the hospital.
Second Autopsy was conducted by the doctors in Amritsar when the body of Sarabjit returned to India. Indian doctors provided following bone-chilling facts about Sarabjit's death:
1. More than two people attacked him with heavy blunt weapons.
2. The base of the skull was fractured, and broken into two pieces.
3. Three left and two right ribs fractured
4. Jaw broken
5. Injuries on both ears
6. Heart, kidneys, stomach, and gall bladder were missing from the body. Possibly sent for examination after the autopsy at Jinnah hospital.
7. Severe head injuries and possibly cardiac arrest were the reason for Sarabjit's death.
Pakistan only sent a death certificate, no autopsy report was sent by them.
Learn
It was surely one of the darkest events of Indian history. If you're thinking it's futile to know about him after so many years then I must tell you that it's really important to learn from the past, so that we don't make the same mistakes in our future again. If we'd raised our voices back then, maybe there would have been one less dark event in our history.
One more Indian, Kulbhushan Jadhav who's currently suffering in those jails of Pakistan shouldn't be the next Sarabjit. It's still time to raise your voice.
India will never forget Sarabjit.
India will not repeat its dark history!
Know more about Sarabjit here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/
Sources :
https://www.bbc.com/news/
http://www.rediff.com/news/
