New Delhi: The issue of ailing Pakistani
microbiologist Khaleel Chishty, lodged in Rajasthan jail,
figured on Sunday at the luncheon meeting Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh had with Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari.
Pakistan`s Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who was seated
opposite Home Minister P Chidambaram at the lunch table, is
understood to have inquired about Chishty.
Chidambaram is understood to have said that the Chishty
case was before a court which was yet to take a view on the
matter.
Chishty was handed a life term on January 31, 2011 by a
trial court for a murder in Ajmer in 1992.
Born in Ajmer in a prosperous family of khadims, Chishty
was studying in Pakistan at the time of Independence and chose
to stay on and become a citizen.
During a visit to Ajmer in 1992 to meet his ailing
mother, he got involved in a dispute and, in the melee, one of
his neighbours was shot dead and Chishty`s nephew was injured.
The sessions court granted him bail a few days after the
incident, but ordered him not to leave Ajmer. Chishty lived on
his brother`s poultry farm till his conviction.
Chishty`s case came to light when the then Supreme Court
judge Markandeya Katju wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
urging that the Pakistani national be pardoned on humanitarian
grounds.
PTI
