Simple Sarabjit strayed into Pak: jail inmate

Mehboob Elahi, Sarabjit Singh's fellow inmate in jail, says Sarabjit is a simpleton, who had unknowingly strayed into Pakistan.

Sarabjit Singh, who has been on death row in a Pakistan prison for the past 17 years on charges of plotting bomb blasts in Lahore and Multan, “had unknowingly strayed into Pakistan”, says his fellow inmate in jail.

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“He (Sarabjit) is a simpleton, who had unknowingly strayed into Pakistan. I have even stayed with him in the same jail,” said Mehboob Elahi, former Indian prisoner in Pakistan who was released from the prison in 1996.

“I’ve stayed with him in the same cell at Gujranwala jail for at least a year and a half,” 52-year-old Elahi told a TV channel.

There was another person with him called Malkiat Singh from Taran Taran in Punjab, he added.

Elahi was in his early twenties when he strayed into Pakistan and was arrested in Lahore on June 23, 1977. He was convicted on espionage charges and sentenced to 14 years’ rigorous imprisonment in 1980 and was released on December 1, 1996.