21 September 2005 :
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said he would speak to Pakistan's president about Sarabjit Singh, an alleged Indian spy handed the death sentence in Pakistan. MPs urged Singh to intervene after the man's family, which said he was an innocent man who strayed across the Pakistani border while drunk, threatened to commit mass suicide when the sentence was upheld by Pakistan's Supreme Court."The prime minister assured us that he would speak to Pakistan President (Pervez) Musharraf on the issue and that the government would do all it could to save the life of Indian national Sarabjit Singh," said Shamsher Singh Dullo, a senior leader of Singh's Congress party.
Sarabjit Singh, from the border village of Bikhiwind in the northern Indian state of Punjab, went missing in August 1990 when he inadvertantly strayed across the border, his sister Dalbir Kaur said.
Once in Pakistan, he was mistaken as an agent of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India's external intelligence agency, and taken into custody for allegedly masterminding a series of bomb blasts in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, she said.
A Pakistani court handed Singh -- whom it identified as RAW agent Manjit Singh -- a death sentence which was upheld by the Supreme Court on August 18.