Sarabjit`s Pakistani lawyer barred from meeting him

Jalandhar: Pakistani officials have refused to allow Sarabjit Singh`s lawyer to meet him in a Lahore jail after the counsel returned from India carrying letters and personal items for the Indian prisoner.

Awais Sheikh, the lawyer of the Indian prisoner, informed this to Sarabjit`s daughter Swapandeep via e-mail last night. "After returning from India to Pakistan, Sheikh tried to meet my father. He had applied to the Pakistan Home Secretary but he was refused permission," Swapandeep said today. In his e-mail, Sheikh said that he had tried to meet Sarabjit on September 1 after returning from India, to deliver letters from his family and some personal items to him. Sheikh was surprised when his permission to meet Sarabjit was refused on the grounds that `no judicial proceedings were pending before court`, Swapandeep informed. She said Sheikh had informed her that he had been meeting her father since July, 2009 as per court orders and so the Home Secretary`s order was illegal. The lawyer also mentioned that he would file a writ petition against it today, she said. Sarabjit, convicted and sentenced to death for alleged involvement in a string of bombings in Punjab in 1990, has been languishing in jail for more than two decades. PTI