Islamabad: A Pakistani man, who had lost his passport in India while there to watch cricket in 2005, was buried on Tuesday a day after his body was sent home from India where he had been imprisoned as a spy, his brother said.
Khalid Mahmood died in an Indian prison on February 12, but his family in Pakistan was informed of his death only on March 4, family members said. March 4 was the same day Pakistani authorities released an Indian, Kashmir Singh, who spent 35 years on death row in Pakistan on spying charges, but was released after President Pervez Musharraf accepted his mercy plea.
"He had gone to India to watch a match in early 2005 where he lost his passport and ended up in an Indian jail on spying charges," Mahmood's brother, Fateh Mohammad Sadiq, said.
"Without a passport, he could not return and was arrested months later after his relatives in India refused to shelter him out of fear because he did not have a passport," Sadiq said.
Sadiq said the Indian authorities had not said how his brother, who was 30, died. But he said his brother's body bore signs of torture. Indian authorities handed over Mahmood's body on Monday at Wagah, the main crossing on the border between the two countries near the Pakistani city of Lahore.
A Pakistani Foreign Office spokesman said India had never informed Pakistan about Mahmood's arrest until he died. "We only found about him when he died ... We are in touch with the Indian Government. We have taken very strong notice," said the spokesman, Mohammad Sadiq.
He also said India had not given a cause of death. Referring to last week's release of the Indian prisoner, the brother Sadiq said: "We send their man with garlands as a gesture of friendship, but got the dead body of our brother in return."
The neighbours launched a peace process in early 2004 and began sending cricket teams to each others' country soon after that. Thousands of fans have travelled back and forth to watch cricket since then.
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