Pakistan's top diplomat in New Delhi is to pay a hospital visit Monday to a Pakistani prisoner.
NEW DELHI (AFP) - Pakistan s top diplomat in New Delhi is to pay a
hospital visit Monday to a Pakistani prisoner who was critically injured
in an attack by an inmate in an Indian jail, officials said.
Convicted murderer Sanaullah Ranjay suffered multiple head injuries
in a prison in India s northern city of Jammu in an apparent tit-for-tat
attack after an Indian prisoner, Sarabjit Singh, was fatally assaulted
in Pakistan.
Last week, Ranjay was airlifted to a government hospital in the city
of Chandigarh, 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of New Delhi.
"The Pakistani High Commissioner, Salman Bashir is visiting the
hospital where Ranjay is being treated. He wanted to get a medical
update," the press officer at the Pakistan High Commission, Manzoor Ali
Memon, told AFP.
Memon said the embassy is also making travel arrangements for
Ranjay s family in Pakistan to cross the border and visit him in the
hospital.
A spokeswoman for the government hospital said Ranjay was in the
intensive care unit and on a ventilator as his condition "continues to
remain critical".
Ranjay, who hails from the city of Sialkot in Pakistan, was attacked
by a prisoner who was identified as a former Indian army soldier nearly
24 hours after Singh s death in Lahore.
Singh died last week in Pakistan and was cremated with state honours
in his native village in northwestern India where hundreds of protesters
shouted "Down with Pakistan!" as they gathered to pay their tributes.
The prison violence could aggravate tensions between nuclear-armed
India and Pakistan, whose relations were hit by a border flare-up
earlier this year.
According to the Indian government, 535 Indian prisoners, including
483 fishermen, are in Pakistani jails, while 272 Pakistani prisoners are
behind bars in India.
