PTI

CHANDIGARH, Mar 8: Kashmir Singh, who was freed from Pakistani jail after 35 years, on Friday admitted that he was an Indian spy and did his best to serve the country, but deplored that successive governments at the Centre did nothing for his family.

"After my arrest in 1974, the successive governments did nothing for my family. I did the duty assigned to me as a spy, but the government after my arrest did not bother to spend a single penny for my family," a calm and composed looking Singh, who was accompanied by his wife Paramjeet Kaur said.

Sixty seven-year-old Singh thanked God for being kind to him and said the various governments at the Centre did nothing for any of the prisoners languishing in various jails in Pakistan.

"The Central government did not bother to take care of my family following my arrest. The government does only the paper work," he said.

Asked whether he was sent to Pakistan by the Military Intelligence and the route he took to go there, Singh said 'even Pakistan authorities failed to get this information from me'.

"I was paid Rs 400 as salary...as per duty, I went to serve the country," he said.

Asked what he would like to say for some other people who are working in similar kind of professions, Singh said, "I was a spy and did my duty, about others I will not comment, I am not President of the country to give reply to such queries".

Singh, who was lodged in seven different jails in Pakistan, said, "I will not tell the story of my ordeal in Pakistani prisons as it will damage the cases of about 100 other such prisoners languishing in jails there".

"Only I can say that I am a firm believer of God and even offered namaz and kept roza (fast) in the Pakistani jails," he said.

When asked how she managed to sustain her family, Kaur said, "I worked as a maid".

"After my husband's arrest, the Central government gave no compensation to the family and left me in lurch," she said.

He said in Pakistani prisons he was known by the name of 'Ibrahim'.

"I was kept in solitary confinement and remained chained for 17 long years," he said.

Earlier, Singh along with his wife met Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal here

Pakistan shocked by Kashmir Singh's confession

Agencies

 
ISLAMABAD: Ansar Burney, the Pakistani minister for human rights, who had played a vital role in the release of Kashmir Singh, has expressed shock over the latter’s confession that he was actually a spy and has sought forgiveness from the people of Pakistan.

Burney told a private Pakistani television channel on Friday night, “Whatever I was doing was out of sympathy and goodwill for the old man. And I am taken aback after his confession about his being an Indian spy. All my life as the chairman of the Ansar Burney Trust I have never been cheated upon like this.

This is the first deception I have met. I had already started to have doubts about that man when he issued contradictory statements about his religious conversion. I was already under fire from the opposition that instead of fighting for the freedom of the deposed chief justice and his fellow judges, I was fighting for the freedom of Indian spies.

The damage the confession has done is that now onwards no government in Pakistan will ever give the benefit of doubt to any Indian prisoner in the Pakistani jails.”