Vital organs missing in Sarabjit’s body : Second autopsy report

By Niticentral Staff

Even as outrage poured in India against the brutal killing of Sarabjit Singh, new revelation might aggravate the relation between the two countries. A second autopsy was conducted at Patti Hospital in Amritsar to as certain the cause of death and to cross-check the claims of Pakistan over the same and the time of death which found vital organs like heart, kidneys and stomach were missing from the body.

A panel of five doctors, consisting of heads of the departments of Forensic, Anaesthesia, Orthopaedics, Surgery and Pathology from Amritsar Medical College, conducted the post-mortem of Sarabjit’s body on Thursday night.

The motive behind the attack on Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh in a Pakistani prison was to “kill him,” a panel of doctors, which conducted the second autopsy, said Thursday.

“It was a clear case…the motive of attack (on Sarabjit) was to kill him,” Dr H S Rai, Head of Forensic Science Department, Government Medical College and Hospital here, who led the five-member doctors’ panel, said.

According to sources the panel found vital organs like heart, kidneys and stomach missing from the body of Sarabjit.

This will make the autopsy exercise in India grossly inconclusive, said doctors, raising further questions marks over the intentions and conduct of Pakistan in the case of Sarabjit, who was brutally assaulted inside the Kot Lakhpat Jail.

On Thursday, a six-member Pakistani medical board performed the autopsy of Sarabjit Singh, 49, at the Jinnah Hospital in Lahore, before handing over the body to the Indian officials.

Sarabjit died due to massive internal bleeding because of a head injury, according to the initial autopsy report that was conducted in Pakistan.

“It seems that a 5 cm-wide injury on the top of Sarabjit Singh’s skull contributed to his death,” said one of the members of the medical board that conducted the autopsy.

The member, who did not want to be identified, said the board found some minor injuries on Sarabjit’s face, neck and arms.

Sarabjit’s body was flown to India on a special Indian aircraft from Lahore.

Sarabjit died at Jinnah Hospital on early Thursday. He had been in a deep coma since he was assaulted by at least six prisoners within his barrack at Kot Lakhpat Jail on April 26.

Sarabjit was convicted of alleged involvement in a string of bomb attacks in Punjab province that killed 14 people in 1990 and spent about 22 years in Pakistani prisons.

According to his family he was the victim of mistaken identity and had inadvertently strayed across the border in an inebriated state.

Sarabjit’s mercy petitions were rejected by the courts and former President Pervez Musharraf. The previous Pakistan People’s Party-led Government put off Sarabjit’s execution for an indefinite period in 2008.