NEW DELHI: Eleven years after Indian death-row convict Sarabjit Singh was killed in a Pakistan jail, his arrested murderer – ISI henchman and Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed‘s close associate Amir Sarfaraz – was fatally shot on Sunday by motorbike-borne gunmen in Lahore’s Islampura locality. Pakistani authorities are investigating the killing as a “targeted attack”.
Trigger-happy Sarfaraz, nicknamed Tamba after copper-plated bullets, had been roaming free since his acquittal by a Lahore court in 2018, citing “lack of evidence”.
Sources said he was lodged in block 7B of Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail when, on ISI’s instructions, he and his aide Mudassar were provided free passage to Sarabjit’s cell (7E) early on April 26, 2013. The duo bludgeoned Sarabjit, who had been convicted and sentenced to death for spying, with bricks and stones.
Sarabjit’s death triggered India-Pak diplomatic row
They then tried to suffocate him with a plastic bag on his head. Hospitalised with severe head injuries and a broken spine, Sarabjit died on May 2, 2013, six days after the attack.
The circumstances of Sarabjit’s death triggered a diplomatic row between India and Pakistan. A single-judge commission of Justice Mazhar Ali Akbar Naqvi from Lahore high court investigated Sarabjit’s murder before the trial began at the sessions court, Lahore.
Sarfaraz and Mudassar confessed to the crime, saying they killed Sarabjit to avenge the deaths in the Lahore and Faisalabad blasts allegedly carried out by Sarabjit. Naqvi recorded the statements of 40-odd witnesses. He also sought to record Sarabjit’s statement, but the plea was disallowed on grounds of the latter’s medical condition.
The sessions court acquitted Sarfaraz and Mudassar after not a single witness testified due to alleged pressure from ISI.
Sarabjit was a farm worker when he was arrested by Pakistani Rangers along an unmarked patch of the India-Pakistan border near Kasur in Punjab province. He was subsequently framed and charged with orchestrating multiple blasts in Pakistan.
Despite pleas by his family that he had mistakenly crossed the border, a Pakistani court handed Sarabjit the death sentence for spying and killing at least 14 citizens in bomb blasts in Punjab province in 1990.
A movie titled Sarbjit, starring actors Randeep Hooda and Aishwarya Rai, released in 2016.
Trigger-happy Sarfaraz, nicknamed Tamba after copper-plated bullets, had been roaming free since his acquittal by a Lahore court in 2018, citing “lack of evidence”.
Sources said he was lodged in block 7B of Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail when, on ISI’s instructions, he and his aide Mudassar were provided free passage to Sarabjit’s cell (7E) early on April 26, 2013. The duo bludgeoned Sarabjit, who had been convicted and sentenced to death for spying, with bricks and stones.
Sarabjit’s death triggered India-Pak diplomatic row
They then tried to suffocate him with a plastic bag on his head. Hospitalised with severe head injuries and a broken spine, Sarabjit died on May 2, 2013, six days after the attack.
The circumstances of Sarabjit’s death triggered a diplomatic row between India and Pakistan. A single-judge commission of Justice Mazhar Ali Akbar Naqvi from Lahore high court investigated Sarabjit’s murder before the trial began at the sessions court, Lahore.
Sarfaraz and Mudassar confessed to the crime, saying they killed Sarabjit to avenge the deaths in the Lahore and Faisalabad blasts allegedly carried out by Sarabjit. Naqvi recorded the statements of 40-odd witnesses. He also sought to record Sarabjit’s statement, but the plea was disallowed on grounds of the latter’s medical condition.
The sessions court acquitted Sarfaraz and Mudassar after not a single witness testified due to alleged pressure from ISI.
Sarabjit was a farm worker when he was arrested by Pakistani Rangers along an unmarked patch of the India-Pakistan border near Kasur in Punjab province. He was subsequently framed and charged with orchestrating multiple blasts in Pakistan.
Despite pleas by his family that he had mistakenly crossed the border, a Pakistani court handed Sarabjit the death sentence for spying and killing at least 14 citizens in bomb blasts in Punjab province in 1990.
A movie titled Sarbjit, starring actors Randeep Hooda and Aishwarya Rai, released in 2016.