May 11, 2008	Sunday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 5, 1429

LAHORE, May 10: Indian Border Security Force on Saturday handed over the body of a Pakistani prisoner, Mohammad Akram, to the Rangers at the Wagah border post, 10 days after his death.

Victim’s brother Mohammad Aslam said on phone that his brother had a brain tumour.

“Indian authorities have already carried out Akram’s post-mortem examination. There are stitch marks on his body,” he said.

Akram, 32, a resident of Samundri in Faisalabad district, crossed the border in the Kasur area on Feb 8 and was arrested by the Indian authorities. He died in the Amritsar jail in the last week of April.

Batapur station house officer Malik Khalid Mahmood said that a post-mortem examination would determine the exact cause of his death. He said any legal action would be taken in the light of the autopsy report.

Aslam, a farmer, said his younger brother, Arkam, was a clerk in the education department.

He said Akram was married and had a two-and-half-year old son. He was going to appear in intermediate examinations from the Allama Iqbal Open University.

He said Akram had gone to meet their third brother, Ashraf, who lived in a village in Kasur district. He had stayed there for a few days and then left for the shrine of Sufi Barkat in Lalyani Mustafaabad near the Kasur-Lahore road.

On April 30, 2008, the family read a news item that a Pakistani prisoner, Mohammad Akram, who had crossed the border from Kasur about two and half months ago, had died in the Amritsar Jail.

“We verified that it was my brother,” Aslam said.

Aslam said he would appeal to the Pakistani government for lodging a protest with the Indian government if it was confirmed, after an autopsy, that he was tortured.