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Bhikhiwind, Punjab: This Punjab town on Saturday woke up to drum beats as the family and friends of Sarabjit Singh celebrated the news that Pakistan had indefinitely put off the Indian prisoner's hanging.
A large number of people shared their joy with Singh's family at their modest single-storey house here, 50km from Amritsar. Singh is on a death row in Pakistan convicted of exploding bombs that killed 14 people in Lahore and Multan.
Singh's elder sister Dalbir Kaur, who has been leading the campaign to save him, distributed sweets to visitors. Some neighbours and family friends did "bhangra", a dance, to the beat of drums.
"I hope is that he is released soon. This is such great news for us. I want to thank the Pakistan government for this," Dalbir Kaur told reporters here.
"Now I am expecting that the Pakistan Government in the next few days would definitely extend the clemency," said Dalbir Kaur.
Singh's wife Sukhpreet and daughters, Swapandeep and Poonam, were equally elated. They offered prayers at a gurudwara.
"Pakistan's decision gives us a lot of hope. We wish that he is released early," Poonam said. The family had returned from Lahore last week after meeting Singh for the first time in 18 years at Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail.
While the family says that Singh is innocent and crossed into Pakistan inadvertently in an inebriated state in August 1990, the Pakistani authorities have accused him of terrorist activities. Prosecutors in Pakistan say he is Manjit Singh and was found guilty by Pakistani courts of exploding two bombs in Lahore and Multan cities in 1990 in which 14 people were killed. He was to be hanged on March 31 but the exeution was put off following the intervention of the Indian government. The hanging was again postponed by another three weeks on Thursday. It has now been postponed indefinitely.
"Sarabjit's execution has been stayed," Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah said in Islamabad.
Asked for how long the execution process would be halted, Shah said yesterday's order postponing the execution does not mention any time-frame.
The execution was stayed till further orders by the government of Pakistan and the President of Pakistan, according to Singh's lawyer Rana Abdul Hameed.
Significantly, the latest reprieve for Singh, who has been lodged in a Lahore prison for the last 18 years, comes days ahead of External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee's visit to Pakistan on May 21. Moves are also afoot in Pakistan to commute death sentences to life and Singh may benefit from it.
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