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Lahore: India returned the body of an alleged Pakistani spy who died in prison to his home country yesterday, less than a week after Pakistan freed an Indian held for 35 years on the same charge.
Indian officials handed over the body of Khalid Mehmood to Pakistani authorities at the main border crossing with Pakistan at Wagah, said Tariq Mahmood, an officer with Pakistan's border guards. His family collected the body there.
Mehmood, 37, died last month in a New Delhi jail and his brother said the family was informed March 4, the same day that Pakistan released Kashmir Singh, an Indian jailed for spying, as a humanitarian gesture.
Indian authorities did not provide a cause of death.
Bitter history
Pakistan and India have a history of bitter ties and they routinely arrest each other's citizens, often over accusations of spying. Many are held for years, usually without trial or appearing in any court.
Arif Awan, a lawyer for Mehmood's relatives, said that he was arrested in 2005 after he lost his passport in the Indian city of Mohali, where he had travelled to watch a cricket match between Pakistan and India.
He was later charged with spying and involvement in terrorism but never appeared in court.
Awan said his relatives wanted doctors to perform an autopsy on the body because they suspected he was abused in custody.
Relatives who visited Mehmood last year in a jail in New Delhi said Mehmood's "nails had been pulled off, his body bore torture marks and his eyes had sunk," his brother Inamul Haq said.
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