India and Pakistan both need to mend their ways

First Sarabjit Singh and now Sanaullah Ranjay. The recent deaths of the two convicts in Pakistani and Indian prisons, respectively, bolsters the need for the two countries to adopt intractability as the tone of dialogue. Even as India questioned the security measures in the Lahore prison where Sarabjit was incarcerated, and brutally attacked, and sought an international enquiry into his death, it was the turn of Ranjay, convicted under India’s anti-terrorism act in 1999, to be fatally attacked in a prison in Kashmir.

The death of Ranjay yesterday has prompted Pakistan too to seek an international enquiry, as the tragedy questions India’s failure to protect him. This grim mirroring of violence and intolerance on both sides must stop and one way to enable this is for the two nations to look into more effective measures regarding prisoners’ treatment.

Both countries need to commit to positive intentions such as releasing prisoners who have completed their term, expediting cases against civil prisoners, allowing consular access to those denied of it and considering humanitarian grounds for release in individual cases where appropriate. Imprisoning political ideologies in narrowness is as detrimental to both countries as is paying scant attention to those they have incarcerated.