Islamabad : After being on the death row for 20 years over bombing charges, Indian national Sarabjit Singh is being released with Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari today commuting his death sentence.

Zardari commuted Sarabjit’s death sentence to life term which he has already completed having been in jail beyond 14 years. Therefore he is being released.

The 49-year-old Sarabjit, convicted and sentenced to death for alleged involvement in a string of bombings in Punjab in 1990 that killed 14 people has maintained his innocence and said that his was a case of “mistaken identity”.

Zardari has directed authorities to release him if he has completed his prison term, official sources said today.
Following the summary or official proposal issued by the presidency, Law Minister Farooq Naek today asked the Interior Ministry to take steps to “immediately” release Sarabjit as he had completed a life term, the sources told PTI.

Sarabjit could be released in the next few days after the Interior Ministry and the Home Department of Punjab complete necessary formalities, the sources said.  Sarabjit is currently being held at Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore.

President Zardari’s action came a little over a month after ailing Pakistani virologist Khalil Chishti, detained in Rajasthan for nearly two decades on the charge of involvement in a murder, was freed on the orders of India’s Supreme Court so that he could meet his family in Karachi.

Sarabjit had sent a fresh clemency appeal to President Zardari last month after the release of Chishti.

The mercy petition included a document with the signatures of 100,000 Indians that urged Zardari to reciprocate the release of Chishti by India.

Two letters addressed to Zardari by the chief cleric of Delhi’s Jama Masjid, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, and the caretaker of the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, Syed Muhammad Yamin Hashmi, were also attached to the petition.