New Delhi,: Consular access should be granted within three months and prisoners repatriated within a month of their sentences being completed, an India-Pakistan judicial panel that visited three jails in Pakistan has recommended.
The panel, which met with Indian prisoners lodged in Pakistan, comprised Justice (Retd) A S Gill and Justice (Retd) M A Khan from India and Justice (Retd) Abdul Qadir Chaudhry, Justice (Retd) Nasir Aslam Zahid and Justice (Retd) Mian Muhammad Ajmal from Pakistan.
The team visited the District Jail Malir in Karachi, the Adiyala Jail in Rawalpindi and the Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore between April 26-May 1, 2013.
The panel, which concluded its visit just a day before Indian death row prisoner Sarabjit Singh died in Lahore after being attacked in Kot Lakhpat, recommended that the Consular Access Agreement of May 2008 between the two countries “be implemented in letter and spirit and consular access be provided within three months of the arrest”.
Complete details of the charges and a copy of court’s judgment of the sentence must be shared in each case, said a statement.
“The prisoners must be repatriated within one month of confirmation of national status and completion of sentences.”
Protesting BJP, AAP activists spar at Jantar Mantar
New Delhi: Tension gripped the air as a scuffle broke out between members of the BJP and the Aam Aadmi Party at Jantar Mantar here yesterday where both the political parties were protesting, on different issues.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) along with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal were protesting the death of Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh after he was attacked in a Lahore prison, while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), led by Arvind Kejriwal, had joined the Sikh community’s protests over the acquittal of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case.
The trouble began when some members of AAP raised slogans, abusing the Congress and the BJP for failing to give justice to the riot victims. This led to heated arguments and members of both groups hurled abuses at one another amidst pushing and shoving.
IANS
