Politics over Sarabjit Singh, the battered Indian spy who breathed his last in a Lahore hospital last week while on death row in Pakistan for his involvement in 1990 serial bomb blasts, has taken a pernicious turn. The carefully orchestrated attack on Sarabjit in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail leading to his death virtually ensures that the tumultuous India-Pakistan tie runs into troubled waters giving space to the hawks to dominate the scene yet again.
A comatose Singh also compelled New Delhi, for probably the first time ever, to own somebody who was lured into a secretive war and then left in the lurch by the State and its intelligence agencies. Even those at the top of the governmental hierarchy in India, privy to Sarabjit’s antecedent — as this author learned reliably from an authoritative source — were resigned to the fact that this foot soldier of India’s espionage system was in no position to legally escape confinement if not death penalty. This despite the fact that Shaukat Saleem — a prime witness whose father and brother perished in one of the blasts — subsequently retracted his statement against Sarabjit.
The man was handpicked to operate deep inside Pakistani territory and imparted hands-on training in the tradecraft of espionage that included assuming fake identities, resorting to subversion and liaising with the Indian intelligence’s clandestine stations unaffiliated to the host government.
So why would some rogue elements settled in the same prison alongside Sarabjit, for a decade or so, suddenly decide to take up the Pakistani State’s burden of providing adequate retribution to the Indian secret agent some 23 years later, as confessed by the guilty themselves?
Is it because the offenders have some family links to any of the victims of the bomb blasts in Lahore, Multan and Faisalabad that were supposedly triggered by Singh or is there something more to the grisly incident than meets the eye? After all, the Indian intelligence’s unique effort to use the Pakistani prisons for cobbling together hard actionable information through human intelligence sources has not been in the public domain hitherto. Moreover, the timing of the deadly assault on Sarabjit also intrigues many, given the existing political vacuum in Pakistan as the country is already in poll mode. Some analysts believe it to be the handiwork of Pakistani military establishment, especially the ISI directorate because there have been subdued talk of a done deal between the outgoing Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and the Indian political establishment to pardon and repatriate Sarabjit. Pakistani intelligence officials are reportedly opposed to setting any precedent by way of which convicts accused of large scale homicide will escape the noose after presidential reprieve and head back home happily. May be, the fatal attack in Kot Lakhpat Jail was part of an elaborate master plan drawn out for Sarabjit’s release which seems to have gone awry. Whatever the reasons for inflicting serious bodily injury on a prison inmate, there is no denying the fact that both India and Pakistan live on with a gloomy history of shabbily treating each other’s nationals in custody. Sarabjit’s case has brought to fore two vital issues — the ethical challenges of intelligence gathering and the reformation of antiquated prison system in the subcontinent — that require serious deliberations at the highest level.
The phrase “intelligence ethics” is an oxymoron of sort as espionage agencies are expected to exploit the need and greed of individuals for sub-serving the larger strategic objective of nation states. Both Indian and Pakistani agencies have this habit of using low grade asset in spying on each other’s military establishment and conducting subversive activities. Though high profile operatives of superior rank did make several surreptitious forays into Pakistani territory during the 70s to get first hand intelligence of Islamabad’s river dam building spree and simultaneously ascertain its nuclear capability. Since, in most cases the trans-border operators are deceived about the risks involved in the operations they are asked to carry out, it is high time that the agent’s freedom and basic rights are preserved to the extent possible. Other than the small time criminals who are easily manipulated to work for intelligence wing of various agencies, economic deprivations force many to take to this dangerous profession where handlers more often than not allows them to be sacrificed on the altar of realpolitik. These operatives, one must realize, are human beings at the end of the day with emotions like any other normal person. To use them as expedient tools for penetrating enemy lines are morally unacceptable. Though tragic choices are unavoidable in the course of duty, there is no harm in shaping the operational guidelines in a manner that minimizes human exploitation. On the issue of prison reform, both India and Pakistan are on the same boat so far as the basic infrastructure and living conditions are concerned. An extremely corrupt and dysfunctional system has contributed to the degradation of jails in both the countries where prisoners die routinely either due to bloody fratricidal fights, or fall prey to predators. Heavily overpopulated, understaffed and poorly managed, the subcontinental prisons are no less than fertile breeding ground for criminality and often militancy.
Indian jails are no better as a United States Embassy diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks revealed. Rampant use of electrocution, beatings and sexual humiliation of detainees during incarceration transform the prisons into hellhole where prisoners have little chance of being de-linked from their criminal past. Unless equal emphasis is given to genuine prison reform, recidivism will be encouraged and the jails in both India and Pakistan will remain witness to more and more Sarabjit Singh like incidence.
