Surjeet back home after 30 years, says he was a spy

Agencies/Attari, Punjab

Surjeet Singh, accompanied by daughter Parwinder Kaur, waves after arriving at the Wagah border yesterday

An Indian man who spent three decades in prison in Pakistan for spying returned home yesterday, officials said. Surjeet Singh, 69, was arrested in 1981 and held in a jail in the eastern city of Lahore. Recently, Pakistan’s justice ministry said Singh had completed his life-term and should be sent back to India. In an emotional homecoming, Singh hugged his relatives as he entered India at the Wagah border crossing. “I am seeing my children after more than 30 years,” he told reporters. “There’s no greater happiness than this.” Singh confessed that he had been sent to Pakistan to spy for the Indian army. “Yes, I had gone there for spying,” he told reporters. “I was a RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) agent. No one bothered about me after I got arrested. Don’t ask me too much...,” Singh said.He was garlanded and hugged by family members and fellow villagers from Phidde in Ferozepur district. Dozens of camera crews and journalist jostled with each other to capture the moment.The crowds were so frenetic that Singh, who completed his life term in 2005, couldn’t even meet his wife Harbans Kaur. They were taken to Amritsar, where the family offered prayers at Harmandar Sahib, the holiest of Sikh shrines, in separate vehicles.Smiling and waving to family members, friends and supporters, a tired but beaming Singh thanked Pakistani border officials as he walked across the zero line at the international border. “I am very happy to return after 30 years and meet my children and family,” he said. Singh said he would never return to Pakistan. “I was arrested earlier on spying charges. If I return again, the security agencies might suspect that I have come for spying again”. Singh was given the death sentence under the Pakistan Army Act in 1985. The death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1989 by then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan. Singh was released from Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail early yesterday and made the road journey to Wagah, on the Pakistan side of the border, before entering his homeland. His release came days after Pakistan said another Indian prisoner, Sarabjit Singh, who is on death row, would be released. But Islamabad later clarified that it was in fact freeing Surjeet Singh, imprisoned for espionage. Sarabjit Singh, convicted of spying and sentenced to death in connection with 1990 bomb blasts in Lahore and Faisalabad that claimed 14 lives, has denied the accusations against him“Indian prisoners are treated well in Pakistan jails. Sarabjit Singh is also doing well there. I met him recently though I couldn’t meet him today before leaving. He has sent no message with me. Leave it to me, I will get him released... Please don’t ask anything more,” Singh said.Downplaying the confusion over the release, he said: “In Urdu, the way they write Sarabjit and Surjeet is almost the same. This led to the confusion. Otherwise, everyone knew that the matter was regarding my release only.Singh said prisoners on both sides of the border should be released by the respective governments.“I was treated well by prison officials and I am thankful to them,” he said.Dressed in a white kurta-pyjama and black turban and carrying two bags, Singh was brought to the Wagah border on the Pakistan side in a prison van. Though he had been freed, his left hand was in handcuffs. The accompanying policemen got down with him but did not open the handcuffs immediately as he smiled and hugged his lawyer. Once the formalities were completed, he crossed to the Attari side of the joint border checkpost, about 30km from Amritsar, where his family and friends waited excitedly to meet him. His son Kulwinder, holding a box of sweets, couldn’t hold back his tears. The family had given up hope of seeing him again, presuming him to be dead after he went missing near the border in Ferozepur sector in 1982. “I was only two-three years old when he went missing. This is the biggest day of my life,” said Kulwinder.External Affairs Minister S M Krishna welcomed Pakistan’s decision to release Singh and made a fresh appeal for the release of Sarabjit Singh. Authorities in Pakistan and India often arrest each other’s nationals, accusing them of being spies after they have strayed across land or maritime borders. Activists on both sides of the borders have been campaigning for the release of prisoners incarcerated over long years. Last month, India allowed a convicted octogenarian Pakistani doctor Khalil Chishti to return home on humanitarian grounds. Chishti was accused of killing a man during a brawl in 1992. The trial lasted over 18 years, during which he was placed under house arrest.