AMRITSAR: Relatives of a Pakistani prisoner savagely attacked in an Indian jail traveled to India yesterday 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 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 honors 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.

The prison violence could fuel tensions between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, whose relations were hit by a border flare-up earlier this year.

The neighbors have fought two of their three wars over the disputed region of Kashmir, which they each control in part but claim in full.

New Delhi says 535 Indian prisoners, including 483 fishermen, are in Pakistani jails, while 272 Pakistani prisoners are behind bars in India.