India anger at spy’s death in Pakistan jail

New Delhi said the development damaged relations between the rival countries.

Sarabjit Singh was attacked last Friday and had been comatose and on a ventilator for days before dying in hospital, according to the Pakistani foreign office.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called it “particularly regrettable” that Pakistan had not heeded pleas to take a humanitarian view of the prisoner’s case and allow him to return after he had served 20 years in prison.

Singh was arrested in 1990 after bombings in Pakistan, that killed 14 people. He was convicted of spying and carrying out the blasts.

The death sentence he received was upheld in Pakistani superior courts.

His family maintained Singh was innocent and had entered Pakistan inadvertently from the northern Punjab bordering the country.