The Punjab Chief Minister Mr. Parkash Singh Badal today expressed shock and grief over what he described as “the eminently avoidable tragedy of Sarabjit Singh” culminating in his death in Pakistan in the early hours of the morning today. He strongly condemned the inhuman treatment and brutal murder of Sarabjit Singh right under the nose of the Pakistani authorities.Mr. Badal described Sarabjit Singh as “a national martyr” who suffered unspeakable repression and torture with dignity. The Chief Minister said that the body of the martyr will be cremated with full state honours. The Chief Minster said that the Punjab government will provide government jobs to Sarabjit Singh’s two daughters. ”We will also stand by the family for whatever help they need.”
A special chartered plane is being kept ready in Delhi to bring Sarabjit’s body and members of his family to Amritsar. From there, they will be flown to their village for Sarabjit Singh’s cremation.The government will move a resolution to condole the death of Sarabjit Singh and to pay homage to the departed soul.Mr. Badal came down heavily on the handling of the case by the Government of India. “This is ‘gross diplomatic failure’ and a sign of weakness on the apart of Government of India. Nations are run with a degree of strength of will, which is so missing in this government. We have this very sad feeling that the Government of India failed to articulate national sentiment on Sarabjit and did not even take the necessary diplomatic initiative at a level where it was called for. The issue needed to be on the table in any Indo-Pak engagement because Sarabjit was not just an innocent inpidual but had become yardstick to judge the sincerity for the Pakistan Government towards peace efforts”, said Mr. Badal.
He said that there was an urgent need to treat it as a rarest of rare cases and make a diplomatic initiative at the highest level to secure his release. “There was fund of sympathy for Sarabjit’s cause within Pakistan and human rights civil liberties organizations and activists there had been actively working to put pressure on their government for Sarbjit’s release. But we have a very sad feeling that the Government of India far from spear-heading the initiative in this direction failed even to lend support to these sane voices within Pakistan, added Mr. Badal.”