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India seeks early repatriation of prisoner's body from Pakistan

New Delhi, April 13 

 India on Wednesday sought the "earliest possible" repatriation of the mortal remains of an Indian held in a Pakistan prison who died on Monday.

“Our acting high commissioner met DG South Asia in the (Pakistan) ministry of foreign affairs and asked for earliest possible repatriation of mortal remains,” external affairs ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup tweeted.

He said that, according to the Pakistan government, Kirpal Singh died on April 11 at 2.55 p.m. following a heart attack.
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"We await further details," Swarup stated. 

Kirpal, 54, died at a hospital in Pakistan's Kot Lakhpat Jail. He was alleged to have been involved in a bombing at Faisalabad Railway Station in 1991 and sentenced to death for spying and terrorism in Pakistan.

He was transferred to a hospital on Monday after his health deteriorated suddenly, jail officials said. 

In 2013, an Indian death row convict Sarabjit Singh was attacked by two other inmates at the Kot Lakhpat Jail. He later succumbed to his wounds at the hospital.

On Tuesday, a sister of Kirpal protested at the Attari-Wagah integrated checkpost on the India-Pakistan border over his death.

"My brother Kirpal has been murdered just like Sarabjit was earlier. The Pakistani jail authorities are responsible for his death," Jagir Kaur said during the protest.

She was accompanied by many other protestors, among them Dalbir Kaur, the elder sister of Sarabjit.

The family demanded that Kirpal Singh's body be handed over to them for cremation at his native village in Punjab's Gurdaspur district.