Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan to meet Sarabjit on Thursday

ISLAMABAD: Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan Sharat Sabharwal will visit Indian death row convict Sarabjit Singh, comatose in hospital following a brutal assault, on Thursday.

Sabharwal is scheduled to be in Lahore on Thursday and would visit Sarabjit in hospital, the Indian High Commission said today. There were no other details.

Pakistan has so far granted officials of the Indian mission consular access to Sarabjit on two occasions.

Sarabjit, 49, was admitted to Lahore's Jinnah Hospital on Friday after he was assaulted by six prisoners.

He sustained severe injuries, including a fractured skull, and is in a deep coma.

Doctors treating him said earlier today that his condition had deteriorated.

Sarabjit was sentenced to death for alleged involvement in a string of bombings in Punjab province that killed 14 people in 1990.

The outgoing Pakistan Peoples Party-led government put off his execution for an indefinite period in 2008.

His family says he is the victim of mistaken identity and had inadvertently strayed across the border in an inebriated state.