Sarabjit Singh: 22 Years in Lahore Jail, Then Killed by Inmates

Amir Sarfaraz Tamba, an attacker, was killed in Lahore by unknown bike-borne assailants 11 years after the incident, as reported by local media. His wife Sukhpreet Kaur and two daughters, Swapandeep and Poonam Kaur, survived him. Despite his sister Dalbir Kaur’s relentless efforts to secure his release from 1991 until his death in 2013, Tamba was tried and convicted by the Supreme Court of Pakistan for a series of bomb attacks in Lahore and Faisalabad, resulting in the death of 14 bystanders in 1990.

He was also convicted of terrorism and spying. India maintained that Sarabjit Singh, as he was known, was a farmer who had mistakenly crossed into Pakistan months after the bombing. Despite being sentenced to death in 1991, the Pakistani authorities delayed the sentence multiple times.

Tamba was believed to be associated with Lashkar-e-Taiba’s founder, Hafiz Sayeed. Tamba was critically injured following an attack by fellow inmates, sustaining severe brain injuries, a broken backbone, and falling into a coma. His recovery was deemed highly unlikely by doctors.

His family, allowed to visit him in the hospital, returned to India after being informed of his irreversible coma. India appealed to Pakistan to release Singh on humanitarian grounds or allow him to seek medical care in India, which was repeatedly denied. His body was eventually brought to India, where a second autopsy was conducted.

The findings suggested that he had been attacked with the intent to kill, and his vital organs had been removed, with the possibility that this had occurred during the initial autopsy in Pakistan. According to the initial autopsy report, Singh suffered internal bleeding due to a head injury, and a member of the medical board that conducted the autopsy in Lahore mentioned that he had minor injuries on his face, neck, and arms.