Take No Prisoners

There’s been a big furore over whether and why Pakistan did a U-turn on Sarabjit’s release or not. Pakistan claims they never said Sarabjit would be released. A case of double-speak if ever there was one. And in the midst of all this the people who have had to deal with their hopes being dashed are Sarabjit’s family.

But now it seems that it’s quite possible that the Pakistan spokesperson actually didn’t take Sarabjit’s name while announcing the release. Listen to this video of Faratullah Babar, Pak Spokesperson speaking to Headlines Today announcing the release of a prisoner – Surjeet. He takes his name twice in the first minute of the recording, and then once again. There is exactly one instance when the reporter pronounces the name as Sarabjit and Babar refers to him as Sarabjit as well. He does make the cardinal mistake of referring to the wrong case details though. Is it bad pronunciation or a case of mistaken identity? Either way, shouldn’t someone have picked up on this confusion of names before writing the many news reports which followed and announcing the news to Sarabjit’s family?