ISLAMABAD – President Asif Ali Zardari on Sunday remitted the remaining jail sentence of Indian convict Gopal Das detained for the past 27 years on humanitarian grounds. Spokesperson to the President Farhatullah Babar said that the remission was granted on the advice of the prime minister to honour the appeal of the Supreme Court of India to the Government of Pakistan.
In a statement, he said that several Indian newspapers recently reported that in an unusual step the Supreme Court of India appealed to Pakistan to consider granting remission to Gopal Das on humanitarian grounds. “About two weeks ago the Indian Supreme Court made the appeal while disposing of a writ petition filed by the convict Gopal Das through his brother,” he said.
The bench comprising of Justice Markandey and Justice Gyan Sudha had observed “We cannot give any direction to Pakistan authorities because we have no jurisdiction over them. The Indian authorities have done all that they could in the matter. However, that does not prevent us from making a request to the Pakistani authorities to consider the appeal of the petitioner for releasing him on humanitarian ground by remitting the remaining path of his sentence.
Justice Markandey had also quoted a couplet by Faiz: “Qafas uddas hai yaaro sabaa se kuch to kaho, Kaheen to beher-e-khuda aaj zikr e-yaar chale” Babar said that according to official record, the convicted prisoner Gopal Das s/o Behari Lal was sentenced to life imprisonment in June, 1987 and was set to be released by the end of this year.
Babar said that the president signed the remission advice in the wee hours of Sunday soon after the invitation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was accepted and it was decided that Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani will proceed to Mohali to witness the semi final cricket match between the teams of the two countries.
It may be mentioned that interior secretaries of Pakistan and India will meet Monday-first in the series of dialogue taking place under the umbrella of revived full-spectrum dialogue between the two countries.
