Pak prisoner's family members arrive in India

AMRITSAR: Two members of the family of Pakistani prisoner Sanaullah Ranjay, who is in deep coma at a Chandigarh hospital after being attacked in a Jammu jail, arrived here today via the Wagah-Attari border.

Ranjay's relatives - brother-in-law Mohammed Sehzaad and nephew Mohammed Asif - are expected to reach Chanidgarh by late afternoon.

The relatives, who are on a 15 day visa, were received by the officials of Pakistani High Commission at the Attari border.

Talking to reporters, Ranjay's relatives urged the Indian government to release him so that they could take him back to Pakistan.

The prisoner, meanwhile, continues to be "critically sick" and in "deep coma", a medical bulletin issued by PGIMER said.

Yesterday, Pakistan High Commissioner Salman Bashir had visited Ranjay at the hospital and said his chances of survival seemed "bleak".

Advising both countries to maintain restraint and not create hype, he had said that doctors were trying their best to save him.

"However, the prognosis is weak," he had. 52-year-old Sanaullah, a resident of Sialkot in Pakistan, is serving a life term after being convicted under TADA provisions following his arrest in 1999.

He was injured during a scuffle in high-security Kot Balwal Jail in Jammu and was immediately shifted to Government Medical College Hospital and later rushed to PGIMER here in an air ambulance after doctors said his condition was critical.