Sanaullah is brain dead, say Indian doctors
06 May, 2013
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan death row prisoner Sanaullah Ranjay has been pronounced 'brain dead' by an Indian doctor on Sunday, and there is little chance that he could be brought back to Pakistan in his present condition.
His family is now trying to travel to India to see him."Sana is brain dead, but his vitals organs are working with the help of medication. Pakistan is exploring the possibilities of taking members of his family there and repatriating him to Pakistan for treatment here," a spokesman at the Foreign Office told our sources.
However, Indian officials in Delhi do not agree and told that doctors had indicated both to Indian officials and to Pakistan High Commission diplomats that Sanaullah's medical condition is such that he cannot be moved.
Sanaullah has completed his jail term in 2006 and was hit on the head at Kot Bhalwal Jail in Jammu early on Friday morning by an ex-Indian Army soldier Vinod Kumar, another death row inmate, with bricks and a shovel.
"Sanaullah comes from an extremely poor family of Sialkot. They have neither ID cards nor passports. The Foreign Office has been in touch with them and have informed them that we would facilitate some members of the family to travel to Chandigarh to meet Sanaullah. On Monday (today), the Ministry of Interior will be assisting them in making ID cards and passports," Foreign Secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani told our sources.
The spokesman at the Foreign Office added that Sana's wife is dead while his two teenaged sons do not have ID cards."Sana's brother-in-law and a cousin will be getting their travel documents, ready to go to Chandigarh," the spokesman added.
Meanwhile, Pakistan High Commissioner Salman Bashir was given permission on Sunday to travel from Delhi and visit Sana. Three diplomats are already there, and they are allowed to meet Sana once a day and receive daily medical reports from doctors treating him.
Bashir on Saturday told, "We have asserted that the assault on Sanaullah had brought once again to the fore all that was wrong and which, if not corrected, will ensure that the peoples of this region remain consigned to a future of utter misery and inhumanity that they do not deserve and certainly should not be theirs."
The high commissioner had received Sana's late night medical report on Saturday from Dr SN Mathuriya which stated: "Patient had metabolic alterations and coagulation abnormalities, which are being taken care of by specialists concerned and these are gradually being controlled though they are not totally normal. His blood pressure had been going down, so a third Vasopressor had to be added in the late morning. His neurological status continues to be same as yesterday (Friday) ie in deep coma and is on a ventilator. Hence, he continues to be critically sick."
To prevent more Sana-like cases, the spokesman at the FO added that: "We are taking up at several levels the issue of Pakistani prisoners in Indian jails who have completed their sentence. Our prime minister has also spoken on this."
In Delhi, the Chairman of the Press Council of India, Justice Markandeya Katju, in an appeal to the Indian Government has demanded to forthwith send Sana back to Pakistan as requested by the Pakistan Government. "This will be a humanitarian act. I also appeal to the governments of India and Pakistan to immediately set up committees to review cases of all prisoners in the other country, and to set up mechanisms for early release of those convicted on alleged 'confessions' or insufficient or suspicious evidence. Many of such persons have been convicted on alleged 'confession'. Everyone knows how 'confessions' are obtained in our countries (by third degree methods).
Hence, reliance on these for conviction is totally unsafe," he saidReports now speak of action being taken in the jails of Punjab which has 57 Pakistani inmates, where their security is being enhanced, and they have been segregated from other prisoners. Two of these Pakistanis are women. "We fear backlash," a jail warden was quoted as saying.
The Hindu carried a revealing report about Indian spies, who, it says, are recruited from "poor families, from the border belt of Amritsar, Gurdaspur and Ferozepur in particular, are the recruiting grounds for intelligence agencies like the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), military intelligence (MI) and BSF Intelligence. And Dhariwal, Daduwan, Khaira Kalan and Kang, among others, can almost be called spy villages for the number of men that are recruited from here".
Some are even recruited from across the border, as the curious case of Karamat Rahi illustrates. "Once in India, I was contacted by RAW and began running covert operations and helped recruit other agents for them." His home base in Pakistan was invaluable for the agency, till he was arrested from Lahore in 1988 and sentenced to 14 years for spying.
"When the agencies recruit us, we are shown steps of gold. They promise us money and security for our families, all of which are forgotten when we are arrested," he says. Karamat's former employers offered him a small compensation amount of Rs02 lakh to keep quiet, but he is bitter and refused. "I have spent the best years of my life in jail or working for this country. Now they shun me!"
Following Sarabjit's death, former spies from Punjab and Jammu are now joining hands to renew their struggle for recognition and dues. "It is unfortunate how the government uses poor, gullible men like us, who are made to believe that we are actually serving the nation. As you can see, it is an illusion that gets shattered as soon as we are apprehended," says Karamat. He admits, though, that this has not deterred many more from joining the ranks that he has left.
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