Pakistan Views

Authorities in India have launched an investigation into the ‘mysterious’ death in prison of a Pakistani man who Islamabad says came here to watch a cricket match, a report said Thursday. Khalid Mahmood, 26, had apparently travelled to India three years ago to see a game between the Pakistani and Indian cricket teams.Last week, his relatives alleged he was tortured to death by Indian police who picked him up when he went to the Pakistani embassy to report the loss of his passport.The Indian government ordered the probe after Foreign Ministry of Pakistan demanded an explanation for his death, Indian television network NDTV reported.The circumstances of his death were “mysterious” and “should be condemned in the strongest terms,” Spokesman Foreign Ministry of Pakistan Muhammad Sadiq told reporters in Islamabad last week. Mehmood’s death had “dampened the goodwill” generated by the release earlier this month by Pakistan of an Indian who spent 35 years on Pakistan’s death row for alleged spying, a separate statement said.Pakistan’s envoy to New Delhi was not informed about Mahmood’s 2005 arrest and his name was not on lists of prisoners exchanged by the two countries as part of a peace process launched in January 2004.The government of northern Haryana state, where Mahmood died, has said he was detained on an intelligence tip-off, the report said. India’s home ministry declined to comment on the probe.Meanwhile, the fate of Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh, facing the gallows in Pakistan on alleged terrorism charges, hangs in the balance after Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf rejected his mercy petition.
Singh, who was supposed to be executed on April 1, did however win a brief reprieve with the date of his hanging deferred by a month after the Indian government made a formal appeal for clemency.