Pakistan probes shooting of accused in 2013 murder of alleged Indian spy

Amir Tamba, who was acquitted in the killing of Sarabjit Singh, has been critically injured in the Lahore shooting, according to local media reports.

Pakistani authorities are investigating the shooting of a man who had been acquitted of killing alleged Indian spy Sarabjit Singh in a Lahore prison in 2013, local media reports say.

Amir Tamba was critically injured in the shooting in the eastern city of Lahore on Sunday, Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported on Monday, quoting a police officer and Tamba’s younger brother, Sarfraz.

Several media reports in Pakistan and India on Sunday claimed Tamba was killed in the shooting.

Tamba was a suspect in the death of Singh, who was convicted of spying by a military court in Pakistan and handed a death sentence in 1991. But Singh died in 2013 after inmates attacked him in the Lahore prison.

Singh’s killing inflamed tensions between the two South Asian nuclear-armed rivals. Tamba and a second man went on trial for Singh’s death but were acquitted in 2018 due to lack of evidence.

The deputy inspector general of police in Lahore, Ali Nasir Rizvi, said gunmen entered Tamba’s house and shot him. They fled the scene on a motorbike.

There are conflicting accounts of what happened after that. According to the Dawn report, Sarfraz informed the police of the shooting who took his brother to a local hospital.

But The Associated Press news agency in its report said officials from Pakistan’s army and intelligence agency reached the site of the incident and took Tamba to the city’s Combined Military Hospital.

The Dawn report said Tamba received three bullet wounds, including two on his chest, and is believed to be in a critical condition. It added that police did not confirm if he was recuperating at the military hospital.

Rizvi said a case had been lodged against unidentified assailants but gave no further information about the case, including a possible motive for the attack.

There was slow coverage of Tamba’s shooting in Pakistan’s media on Sunday. However, Indian outlets were quick to report on the incident. There was no immediate comment from the Indian authorities.

Pakistan has previously accused India’s intelligence agency of being involved in targeted killings inside Pakistan, saying it had credible evidence linking two Indian agents to the deaths of two Pakistanis last year.

Singh was arrested in 1990 for his role in a series of bombings in Lahore and Faisalabad that killed 14 people. His family said he was innocent.

Last year, both the United States and Canada accused Indian agents of links to assassination plots on their soil. India dismissed the allegation of its involvement in the killing in Canada as “absurd”.

In the case involving the US, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said it had set up a high-level committee to investigate the accusations, adding that the alleged link to an Indian official was “a matter of concern” and “against government policy”.