MHA asks states to step up security of Pak prisoners

The Union home ministry has asked all the states to step up security of nearly 220 Pakistani prisoners lodged in their respective jails in the wake of the murderous attack on Sarabjit Singh in a Lahore prison.

In an advisory issued immediately after the assault on Sarabjit, the home ministry asked the states to ensure proper security to the Pakistani prisoners expressing apprehension that they may be targeted as a reaction to the attack on Sarabjit.

As per official figure, nearly 220 Pakistanis are lodged in various jails in the country, a significant number of whom have been arrested in cases relating to terrorism and drug peddling.

"All the states have been issued an advisory asking for stepped up security to Pakistani prisoners," sources said.

49-year-old Sarabjit, who was brutally attacked in a high-security Lahore jail by fellow inmates on Friday, succumbed to his injuries early Thursday.

Sarabjit had sustained severe injuries when at least six prisoners attacked him in a barrack at Kot Lakhpat Jail on Friday, hitting him on the head with bricks.

He was on death row after being convicted of alleged involvement in a string of bomb attacks in Pakistan's Punjab province that killed 14 people in 1990 and spent about 22 years in Pakistani prisons. Sarabjit's family has said his was a case of mistaken identity.

Asserting that Sarabjit Singh's death was a killing of an Indian citizen while in custody of Pakistan jail authorities, government demanded that Pakistan conduct a through probe into the incident to ensure that those responsible were punished.

Image: A policeman walks inside the Tihar Jail in New Delhi

Photograph: Mansi Thapliyal/Reuters