Pakistani Prisoner Beaten Up in Indian Jail

Manan Vatsyayana/Agence France-Presse â€" Getty Images Activists burning Pakistani flags in New Delhi on Friday. They were protesting the death of Sarabjit Singh, an Indian prisoner who died Wednesday, after being beaten up by fellow inmates at a jail in Lahore, Pakistan.

NEW DELHI â€" A day after the death of Sarabjit Singh, an Indian national who died from his injuries from a brutal attack by inmates of a Pakistani prison; Sanaullah Ranjay, a Pakistani national imprisoned in Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, was severely beaten up Friday morning by a fellow prisoner.

The assault on Mr. Ranjay is yet another blow to the tense diplomatic relations between India and neighboring Pakistan.

Calling the attack a “brutal assault,” Pakistan’s prime minister’s office demanded India investigate in a statement Friday. “I call upon the Prime Minister of India to look into this grave issue personally and ensure that a thorough investigation is conducted into the incident and perpetrators are brought to justice,” the statement said.

“We are aware of the regrettable incident involving a Pakistani prisoner, Sanaullah Ranjay, who was injured today during an altercation with another inmate of a jail in Jammu” said Syed Akbaruddin, spokesman for India’s ministry of external affairs on Friday.

Reuters Police and hospital staff shifting Sanaullah Ranjay, a Pakistani prisoner, to an intensive care ward in a hospital in Jammu city, Jammu and Kashmir, on Friday.

Sushil Kumar Shinde, India’s minister of home affairs, said this incident will be investigated properly.

A complaint has been registered against Vinod Kumar, the Indian national behind the attack, and the jail superintendent of the Jammu prison has been suspended, prison authorities told India Ink by telephone.

According to local media reports, a heated argument between the two inmates provoked Mr. Kumar to take up a pick axe and hit Mr. Ranjay on his head.Mr. Ranjay has been charged in several cases, including a 1994 bomb blast  in which 10 people were killed after a bomb planted on a bus exploded in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Meanwhile, Mr. Singh, whose body was flown in to India from Pakistan, received a state funeral on Friday in his village in the Amritsar district of Punjab. He was on death row after being convicted of espionage in connection with bombings of two Pakistani cities in 1990. The Indian government pleaded for his release with the Pakistani government on several occasions.

Sanjeev Syal/Associated Press Sukhpreet Kaur, Sarabjit Singh’s wife, grieves over her husband’s coffin at Bhikhiwind, Punjab, on Thursday.

His family claims that he had accidentally crossed into Pakistan through the border near his village in Punjab and he was wrongly convicted in the bomb blast case.

After the news of Mr. Singh’s death was announced on Thursday morning, politicians, civil society activists and citizens expressed grief over his passing and raised questions about the circumstances that led to his death.

Round-the-clock coverage of the incident on national television has been infused with nationalistic fervor and anger. Teary and emotional statements by Mr. Singh’s sister Dalbir Kaur were repeatedly played by local stations.

At present there are 535 Indian prisoners, including 483 fishermen, languishing in Pakistani prisons, and a total of 272 Pakistani prisoners in Indian jails, according to Mr. Akbaruddin.