Emotions run high as Sarabjit’s kin receive his belongings

Friday, 29/11/2013

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20131129/punjab.htm#6

Attari : More than six months after the brutal killing of Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh in Pakistan’s Kot Lakhpat Jail, his family members finally received his belongings today.

Emotions ran high at the Attari-Wagah joint check post as the Indian High Commission officials handed over Sarabjit’s possessions to his family. Sarabjit’s sister Dalbir Kaur, his widow Sukhpreet Kaur and daughters Swapandeep and Poonam were there to receive the belongings.

Dalbir Kaur hit out at the Pakistan Government for failing to provide certain things, including her brother’s personal diary, a register and some family pictures.

“Sarabjit would pen down his daily experiences in jail in a diary. He had written about incidents of ill-treatment and harassment. He also had a register that he had shown to us when we visited him in jail. The Pakistani Government has deliberately held these things back so that its misdeeds are not exposed,” she said.

She said religious books read by Sarabjit, including Gutkas, Hanuman Chalisa and Shani Chalisa, a water cooler and pictures of the family agitating at Jantar Mantar were also missing. She urged the Indian Government to get Sarabjit’s diary back from Pakistan.

The three packets received by Sarabjit's family contained his clothes, utensils, spectacles, shoes, bedding, an English dictionary, Urdu dictionary and the Quran.

“We never thought we would see this day. Following an assurance from then Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, we were hopeful that Sarabjit would be freed,” said a sobbing Dalbir Kaur.

Rajkumar Verka, Vice-Chairman of Scheduled Caste Commission, and Amritsar Deputy Commissioner Ravi Bhagat were also present. The residents of Sarabjit’s native Bhikhiwind village too had turned up in large numbers.

Verka said he would urge the Union Government to initiate steps to get the diary and other articles.

The belongings were taken to Bhikhiwind where the three boxes were opened in the presence of the police, the Tarn Taran district officials and the family members.

The villagers thronged the family’s house for a glimpse of Sarabjit’s belongings. Dalbir Kaur said these would be kept in a museum that the family planned to raise in Sarabjit’s memory.

The Pakistan Government had handed over Sarabjit’s belongings to Indian officials in Pakistan on Tuesday. Sarabjit’s sister had requested Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde to bring back the same. Sarabjit had died in Lahore on May 2 after being brutally attacked by fellow inmates at Lahore's Kot Lakhpat Jail on April 26. He had strayed into Pakistani territory in an inebriated condition in 1990 and was implicated in a serial bomb blast case. He was subsequently sentenced to death.

What came

Clothes, utensils, spectacles, shoes, beddings, an English dictionary, Urdu dictionary & the holy Quran

The articles came in three packets

What didn’t

A diary in which Sarabjit used to pen down his daily experiences in jail

Religious books, a register, some family pictures and a water cooler