Sarabjit's sister ties rakhis to BSF jawans

Wagah, Aug 9 (UNI) Remembering her brother Sarabjit, who is facing the gallows in Pakistan, an anguished Dalbir Kaur today tied rakhis on the Border Security Force (BSF) jawans manning this joint Indi-Pakistan road border check post.

Accompanied by Swapandeep and Poonam, the teenaged daughters of the condemned prisoner who is behind bars in Kot Lakhpat jail near Lahore, Dalbir moved from one jawan to another to tie the sacred thread that signifies the strong bonds that bind a sister with her brother. The two daughters of Sarabjit offered sweets to the jawans.

The youngest of the two daughters, Poonam occasionally glanced towards the Pakistan side of the border, probably to catch a glimpse of her father, about whom she knows very little as she was a baby when he left home fifteen years back.

''I am overcome by sadness whenever I come here, '' Dalbir said while taking Poonam in her arms, trying to cheer her. Poonam and Swapandeep kept wondering when they would see their father walk across the border and take them into his arms.

Dalbir had last week sent ''Rakhi's'' to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and her brother through the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi. Dalbir had yesterday made an appeal to Gen Musharraf to grant amnesty to Sarabjit on the occasion of the Pakistan Independence Day on August 14.

The review mercy petition of Sarabjit, who has been awarded capital punishment on the charges of engineering bomb blast in Pakistan, is pending before Gen Musharraf.

''I have appealed to Gen Musharraf, whom I have made my elder brother through the sacred bond of rakhi, to be like a ''father'' to our family and return Sarabjit -- a brother, a husband and a father-- as an Independence day gift,'' she said.

Sarabjit is lodged in Kot Lakhpat jail near Lahore for the last 15 years on charges of being an agent of an Indian intelligence agency and triggering blasts in Lahore and Multan in the 1990s.

UNI XC-HS PK HT1815