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Clemency for Sarabjit

If the regime in Pakistan carries out the execution of Sarabjit Singh, it would be a grave step backwards. The decision to hang Sarabjit Singh on April 1 comes soon after the Pakistani authorities expressed outrage over the death of a Pakistani, Khalid Mehmood in an Indian jail. The harshness of the response clearly reflects a vindictive and primitive impulse to settle scores. President Pervez Musharraf, by rejecting on March 4 the mercy petition of Sarabjit Singh, has evidently deferred to the angry sentiments of some elements of the Pakistani public. What had clearly incensed Pakistan was that earlier, an Indian prisoner, Kashmir Singh who had spent 35 years in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail had been released with much fanfare. Rendering this gesture slightly farcical was his unsolicited admission that he had indeed been a spy. Therefore passions were further inflamed when Indian authorities issued a less than satisfactory explanation for Khalid Mehmood’s death in a Gurgaon jail — he had been imprisoned on a visa violation charge. Mehmood was claimed to be a cricket fan who had come to India to watch a cricket match. Hence there were angry calls for recrimination, with the vengeance-seeking impulses focussing on Sarabjit, trapped in a Pakistani jail since 1990.

What is regrettable in all this is that the deeper malaise underlying the context of India-Pakistan relations has come to the surface again. There is a dreary sense of déjÀ vu in the acrimonious exchanges in this regard. Given the strenuous efforts being made to build greater bilateral goodwill, these atavistic urges must be reined in by the leadership in Islamabad and New Delhi. President Musharraf can regain much of his lost prestige as a leader in the region if he can face down the die-hards in his country and give clemency to Sarabjit. New Delhi and Islamabad should look hard at certain other issues. In the “spy versus spy” games that are played out across the border, the people who carry out operations are usually drawn from the ranks of the economically deprived. It is unconscionable that such people should be left to fend for themselves when they are caught by the security services of the country into which they have been asked to infiltrate. If India and Pakistan can establish protocols for the protection of diplomats posted in each other’s territory, they can surely adopt certain rules for the treatment of the “little men.” The time has surely come to end the traditional barbarism in the mutual treatment of diplomats by the security services in both countries. It is imperative that India and Pakistan draw up and abide by a detailed code of civilised conduct.

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