Dalbir Kaur lights the pyre of her brother Sarabjit Singh in Bhikhiwind, Punjab, yesterday.
Bhikiwind, Punjab: Sarabjit Singh, the Indian prisoner who died after a murderous attack in a Lahore jail, was yesterday cremated with full state honours of a martyr as tens of thousands of people joined in to bid him a tearful farewell.
Sarabjit’s sister Dalbir Kaur lit the pyre as thousands of people gathered to pay their last respects to the man, condemned as a terrorist in Pakistan and considered a martyr in India.
Sarabjit died on Thursday in Jinnah Hospital in Lahore, six days after being attacked by fellow prisoners in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail on April 26.
In Amritsar, a medical board of Indian doctors who conducted the second post-mortem on his body said that Sarabjit was assaulted “with the motive to kill”. They said that he had been attacked with heavy blunt objects and had “massive head injuries”. This belied the claim of Pakistani authorities that he was fatally injured in a “scuffle” with prisoners.
“The main motive was to kill the person. The face of the skull was completely smashed. Rather it was in two pieces. He died from massive head injuries,” Gurjit Singh Mann, head of a medical panel of the Amritsar Medical College which conducted the second post-mortem examination after Sarabjit’s body arrived in India, told media here.
Before the mortal remains of Sarabjit were consigned to flames, teary-eyed people — men, women, old and young, children and VIPs — were part of the last journey of a man who went through torture and despair for 23 years in Pakistani prisons, trying to prove that he was innocent.
A contingent of Punjab Police reversed arms and fired thrice in the air as a mark of respect to the 49-year-old who is said to have mistakenly crossed into Pakistan in 1990.
As Dalbir Kaur went around the coffin to pour water from an earthen pot, his family members, including wife Sukhpreet and daughters Swapandeep and Poonam, sobbed uncontrollably. “I have lost everything. But my fight for Indian prisoners (in Pakistani prisons) will continue,” Dalbir Kaur said.
The cremation ground proved too small even to accommodate the VIPs, media and family members.
Among those who placed wreaths on Sarabjit’s coffin were Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur, Akal Takht chief Gurbachan Singh and Punjab’s cabinet ministers.
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi walked up to the cremation ground and placed a wreath on the coffin.
IANS
