NEW DELHI – A Pakistani man who was serving a life sentence in an Indian prison died Thursday, less than a week after he was beaten by another inmate and slipped into a coma, an official said.
Sanaullah Ranjay died in a hospital in northern India, said Sultan Hasan, a Pakistani diplomat. Indian Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said Ranjay's body will be handed over to Pakistan after formalities are completed by the external affairs ministry.
Ranjay was imprisoned in 1999 and was sentenced to life in prison in 2009 for being a Pakistani militant operating in Indian Kashmir. The charges against him included murder and waging war against India.
He was beaten up in the prison in Jammu, the winter capital of Indian Kashmir, on Friday, a day after the death of a convicted Indian spy who had been bludgeoned with a brick by fellow inmates at a prison in Lahore, Pakistan.
The longtime rival nations have exchanged criticisms over the attacks, saying the other wasn't doing enough to protect prisoners. Indian and Pakistan have fought each other in three major wars, two of them over the disputed Kashmir region, since gaining independence from Britain in 1947.
Ranjay was brought by air ambulance from Jammu to a bigger hospital in Chandigarh in the nearby state of Punjab.
A medical bulletin said Thursday that "he had multiple organ failure due to severe head injury." His condition had become extremely critical as he also developed hypothermia.
There are 535 Indian prisoners in Pakistani jails and 272 Pakistani prisoners in Indian jails, according to India's External Affairs Ministry.
India was proposing a meeting of officials in both countries to "identify and put in place further measures to avoid such tragic incidents in the future," Syed Akbaruddin, the ministry spokesman, said last week.
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