New Delhi
20 March 2008Pakistani human rights activist Asma Jahangir says her compatriots were pained and affected by the arrival of the body of Khalid Mehmood but
her country is "not so petty" as to not consider India's appeal of clemency for Sarabjit Singh.
Khalid Mehmood, a Pakistani national, was arrested on charges of espionage and died in a Gurgaon jail in February. India handed over his body to the Pakistani authorities soon after Pakistan released Kashmir Singh, an Indian who spent 35 years in a Pakistani prison.
"India and Pakistan must not play politics with human lives. My appeal to a new
government in Pakistan would be that Sarabjit Singh be spared death sentence and
returned to his family," Ms Jahangir said in an exclusive interview to this newspaper
here on Thursday.
Ms Jahangir, who was in India on a United Nations mission, felt India could have
handled Khalid Mehmood's arrest and trial differently but it should not cloud Pakistan's
response or judgment in Sarabjit's case. "We should rise above these narrow
considerations," she asserted.
She hastened to add that India and Pakistan must take care of each other's prisoners.
"There should not be one-sided goodwill," she said, referring to a domestic perception
that Pakistan was setting free Indian prisoners without a reciprocal gesture from the
Indian side.
The lawyer in her strongly felt that India and Pakistan must expeditiously repatriate
convicted prisoners so that they could serve out their jail terms in their respective
countries. Also, both countries should enter into a treaty for exchange of certain
categories of prisoners like fishermen and women.
"I have seen women in the Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore who we don't know whether they
are Indian or Pakistani. In Amritsar, there are prisoners who have lost their mental
balance and the courts have said they be sent back but who will verify who they are and
to which country they should be sent," she recalled.
She would like India and Pakistan to put "activists" instead of retired justices in the Joint
Judicial Committee on Prisoners to expedite the exchange of prisoners. Incidentally, a
four-member Indian team is likely to travel to Pakistan in April to visit different jails
where Indian nationals are imprisoned.
Ms Jahangir, a former chairperson of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, went on to
demand moratorium for prisoners on death row in Pakistan. "Given the concerns on the
functioning of the legal system and the lack of due process, all 7,500 people facing death
sentence in the country should be given moratorium," she said.
Ms Jahangir hoped the advocacy of moratorium would build enough public opinion as to
eventually lead to the abolition of death penalty. On a different note, she wanted to see
Indian democracy deepen so that it becomes a "temptation" for the countries in India's
neighbourhood to follow suit.
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