Pakistan prisoner in 'deep coma', relatives arrive in India
08 May, 2013
AMRITSAR: Relatives of a Pakistani prisoner savagely attacked in an Indian jail travelled to India on Tuesday to visit the inmate who remains critically ill in a "deep coma" in hospital.
Sanaullah Ranjay suffered massive head injuries in a prison in Jammu in an apparent tit-for-tat attack after an Indian terrorist, Sarabjit Singh, was fatally assaulted in Pakistan. Ranjay's brother-in-law and nephew, in India on a 15-day visa, were met by officials of the Pakistani High Commission (embassy) at Wagah, the land crossing between the two countries.
Talking to media before their departure, Ranjay's nephew Asif and his brother-in-law Shahzad said that Ranjay was an innocent farmer who had crossed into India mistakenly in 1999.
The family members demanded the Indian government extradite the prisoner to Pakistan for better treatment. Sanaullah's two teenaged sons were not able to get visas because they both do not have ID cards.
Sanaullah's relatives told reporters at Wagah that they would urge the Indian government to release him so that they could take him back to Pakistan.
The relatives were later taken to the city of Chandigarh where Ranjay was airlifted last week to be treated at a state-run hospital. In a bulletin, the hospital said he remains "critically sick" and in "deep coma." On Monday Pakistani High Commissioner Salman Bashir visited the hospital. Ranjay, who hails from Sialkot, was attacked by a prisoner identified as a former Indian army soldier just 24 hours after Singh's death in a Lahore jail.
Singh, convicted in Pakistan for spying and a string of deadly blasts, died last week and was cremated with state honours in his native village in northwestern India where hundreds of protesters shouted anti- Pakistan slogans.
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