The Pakistan supreme court on Wednesday dismissed a review petition filed by Sarabjit Singh and upheld the death sentence given to him for his alleged involvement in the Lahore bomb attacks of 1990. But there is a fundamental flaw in this. No criminal case can be heard ex parte, which means without representation from the other side. Unfortunately, this is exactly what has happened with the hapless Punjab man.
Justice Raja Fayyaz Ahmed dismissed Sarabjit's review petition "on merit" and upheld the death sentence awarded to him by an anti-terrorism court in 1991. Shockingly, the apex court gave its verdict after his counsel failed to appear in court.
By contrast, look at the way India has been dealing with the Kasab case, though it is an open-and-shut matter with hundreds of eye-witnesses and video footages. It has not only waited for someone to represent him, but has been giving him ample time and space to defend himself.
Even if we don’t take into account Sarabjit’s family’s protestations regarding his innocence, something which Pakistan human rights activist and former minister Ansar Burney seems more than convinced by, especially after he came to Punjab’s Bhikiwind to investigate personally, the fact that the poor man may head to the gallows because his counsel failed to appear in court is a travesty of justice.
In fact, Sarabjit should have got a new lawyer by now because his counsel, Rana Abdul Hamid, has failed to appear in court for the past few hearings, including the last one on Monday. Hamid, incidentally, has left Sarabjit in the lurch after he was appointed an additional advocate general last year.
Intermittently, even Pakistan seems to be convinced about his innocence because he has been saved from certain death many a time now. Sarabjit has been on death row since he was convicted for alleged involvement in four bomb blasts in 1990 that killed 14 people. Though he was set to be hanged on April 1, 2008, the Pakistani government put off his execution indefinitely after Pakistan PM Yousuf Raza Gilani intervened.
Later, even after then President Pervez Musharraf dismissed Sarabjit's mercy petition last year, his execution was deferred for 30 days. This was done to enable the PPP-led government to review his case following India's appeal for clemency.
Now only the Pakistan president has the powers to pardon or remit Sarabjit's sentence. But this raises a disturbing question: is Pakistan using Sarabjit, who most probably is really the farmer that he claims to be, as a pawn in its diplomatic game of oneupmanship? Is it trying to exert some psychological pressure on the Kasab trial? If that be the case, Pakistan would, unfortunately, forfeit its claim of looking at the Sarbjit Singh case with fairness and no mala fide intention.
Back in India, it’s time the government intervened with some force and appealed to Pakistan to at least give this death row convict a chance to defend himself and get himself a lawyer. That’s not asking for too much.
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