Sarabjit's sister tries to meet Gilani in Mohali

Dalbir Kaur, the sister of Sarabjit Singh who is on death row in a Pakistan prison, made a vain bid to meet Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Wednesday during his stay at a hotel in Mohali.

As Gilani, along with his entourage, entered the Hotel Taj located in the heart of the city, Dalbir Kaur, along with Sarabit's daughter Swapandeep Kaur and some other persons carrying a placard with a photograph of Sarabjit, made efforts to have an audience with Gilani.

However, the watertight security arrangements at the hotel and around it prevented Dalbir from meeting Gilani. "We can't allow her to meet Gilani till we get some clearance from the visiting guest's side," a police officer said.

Dalbir said she had high hopes that the Pakistan government would pardon her brother as his was a case of mistaken identity. "Had I got a chance to meet Gilani I would have prayed before him to take some steps from my brother's release as he was not involved in the Karachi bomb blast case almost 20 years ago," she said.

"I am also trying to contact the lawyer who had filed a mercy plea for my brother," she said. Despite several attempts, Dalbir could not get any positive response. Sarabjit Singh is on death row in a prison in Lahore following his conviction for alleged involvement in bomb attacks in 1990.

The Lahore high court awarded him the death sentence in January 2003 in four different cases, and the Pakistan apex court upheld the verdict. Pakistani authorities had indefinitely put off Sarabjit's hanging following the intervention of Prime Minister Gilani in 2008.

Sarabjit's family says he had mistakenly crossed the border in an inebriated condition and was wrongly accused of being involved in the attacks.

Gilani, after a brief stay at Hotel Taj along with his other Pakistani colleagues, headed straight for the Punjab Cricket Stadium at Mohali to witness the high-voltage World Cup Cricket semi-final between India and Pakistan.