Pak turns down India’s request to release Sarabjit: Report

According to the Pakistani daily, sources said the issue was on the meeting’s agenda and after thorough discussion Pakistan did not accept India’s request for the release of Singh.

Gupta, during a separate briefing to some Indian journalists at the Indian Embassy, said the matter remained under discussion but the Pakistani side did not give any final word on it, the paper reported.

The Pakistani side was of the view that since there was no such law in Pakistan to commute death sentence into life imprisonment, the Indian request could not be entertained, the influential daily said. The Indian team argued that Singh, who has been in jail for the past 17 years, should be released on humanitarian grounds.

Singh’s relatives have said he was a farmer from Punjab who crossed the border into Pakistan 15 years ago by mistake and then was confused with a man named Manjit Singh, whom Pakistan blames for a series of bombings in Lahore in 1990.

Singh, convicted by superior courts in Pakistan, has pleaded twice to the President of Pakistan seeking his pardon and his execution date was extended twice in the recent past, despite rejection of his request by the head of state.