Pakistan prisoner in 'deep coma', relatives arrrive in India

AMRITSAR: Relatives of a Pakistani prisoner savagely attacked in an Indian jail travelled to India Tuesday to visit the inmate who remains critically ill in a "deep coma" in hospital.

Sanaullah Ranjay suffered massive head injuries in a prison in the northern city of Jammu in an apparent tit-for-tat attack after an Indian prisoner, Sarabjit Singh, was fatally assaulted in Pakistan.

Ranjay's brother-in-law and nephew, in India on a 15-day visa, were met by officials of the Pakistani High Commission (embassy) at Wagah, the land crossing between the two countries.

They told reporters at Wagah, 18 miles (29 kilometres) from the northern Indian city of Amritsar, that they would urge the Indian government to release Ranjay, a convicted murderer, so that they could take him back to their home country.

The relatives were later taken to the city of Chandigarh where Ranjay was airlifted last week to be treated at a state-run hospital. In a bulletin, the hospital said he remains "critically sick" and in "deep coma."

On Monday Pakistani High Commissioner Salman Bashir visited the hospital. Ranjay, from the Pakistani city of Sialkot, was attacked by a prisoner identified as a former Indian army soldier just 24 hours after Singh's death in a Lahore jail.

Singh, convicted in Pakistan for spying and a string of deadly blasts, died last week and was cremated with state honours in his native village in northwestern India where hundreds of protesters shouted "Down with Pakistan!"

Last weekend demonstrators took to the streets in Pakistan-administered Kashmir to protest against the attack on Ranjay in India.