Prayers being offered for Sarabjit's release

Bhikiwind, Amritsar, Mar 17 (UNI) Even as the Punjab Assembly passed a resolution calling for the release of Sarabjit Singh from a Pakistani jail, the residents of this border town joined hands to express their solidarity with the shocked and grieving family of the condemned prisoner whose death warrant was issued yesterday.

Prayers were offered at every nook and corner of this town and in the nearby villages, including Sursingh, the native village of Sarabjit where he was born and brought up. Prayers were offered in houses, gurdwaras and temples all over the town.

Poonam, the 17-year old daughter of the condemned prisoner again made an appeal to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the freedom of her father, whom she had never seen till date.

"I want to see my father, he is innocent", she kept on repeating as visitors to the house tried to console her. She was born after her father crossed over to Pakistan in early 1990, never to return back home.

Sarabjit's wife, Sukhpreet Kaur again appealed to the Prime Minister to directly take up the matter with Musharraf and get her husband freed. " I can only prayers to the Waheguru for the safe return of my husband", she said as people from all walks of life came to her house to express their support for the family.

"Why cannot my husband be released" she said while pointing to the case of another Indian prisoners Kashmir Singh who came back to India this month after spending 35 years in prisons across the border.

Sarabjit's elder daughter Swapandeep and his sister Dalbir Kaur, who headed the 'free Sarabjit' campaign are in Delhi trying to take up the matter at the right quarter.

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