Bhikhiwind (Punjab), May 2 (ANI): Family members of Sarabjit Singh have reached their hometown Bhikhiwind where his body will be brought to from Pakistan.
According to reports, Sarabjit”s body will first be flown in a special Air India plane to Amritsar, where it will be kept in a hospital mortuary for further post-mortem tests. The body will be released by the unidentified hospital on Friday morning and flown by helicopter to Bhikhiwind.
The funeral rites of the dead Indian prisoner are expected to take place around 2 p.m. on Friday, reportedly with full state honours
Meanwhile, Sarabjit”s body has been handed over to Indian officials by Lahore”s Jinnah Hospital. An ambulance carrying the body has reached Lahore”s Allama Iqbal Airport, where some more formalities are being completed before it is sent into the Air India aircraft.
Indian High Commission officials will accompany the body to Amritsar.
The Punjab Government has declared him a martyr and decided to give him a state funeral at his ancestral village.
External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid earlier in the day said he was “extremely anguished” by the death of Sarabjit Singh, who died in a Lahore hospital following a brutal attack on him in a high-security jail.
“We are extremely anguished by the death” of the Indian prisoner, Khurshid told media here.
Khurshid also said that the government are extremely distressed by the death, and said that they would share the details of what has happened with Parliament.
“We are going to issue a statement in Parliament. It is a terrible psychological and emotional setback for us. We deeply regret his death. We are extremely angry,” Khurshid added.
He further said Sarabjit”s death was a setback to people-to-people contact between India and Pakistan.
“A sustainable and long lasting relationship between two countries has to be between people. That relation has been hurt by what has happened today”, Khurshid added.
Sarabjit Singh”s sister Dalbir Kaur, today lashed out at Pakistan for her brother”s death and called for a war against the country.
Chanting “Pakistan Murdabad”, Kaur said she was appealing to all parties to come together to give Pakistan an ”appropriate answer”.
“I appeal to all political parties to come together and support Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde. Earlier, Pakistan stabbed Vajpayee”s (Atal Bihari Vajpayee) back and today they have stabbed Manmohan Singh. It”s time to wage a war against Pakistan”, she said.
She also alleged that human rights activist Ansar Burney had asked for a huge amount to get Sarabjit back to India.
“Had I paid Rs. 25 crore to Ansar Burney, Sarabjit would have returned to India,” Kaur said.
She also said that her brother had been dead even while he was in hospital in Lahore, and doctors and nurses had laughed at them.
“When we were almost in hysterics and we asked hospital authorities how Sarabjit is, they laughed at us. Nurses, doctors at the Pakistan hospital laughed at us because they knew he was dead. Pakistan murdered him”, she said.
Sarabjit died of cardiac arrest in a Pakistani hospital in the wee hours on Thursday after being comatose for nearly a week following a brutal assault by fellow inmates in a high- security jail.
Sarabjit had been admitted to the intensive care unit of the hospital, where four of his family members – his sister, wife and two daughters – had visited him.
They returned to India yesterday, and condemned the Indian Government for not taking up their cause in right earnest.
Dalbir Kaur even called on Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to resign over the issue.
Sarabjit had been on death row since 1991 after he was convicted of espionage and links to a series of bombings in the Punjab province of Pakistan. (ANI)