"He would be hanged on the exact date (April 1) and there would be no delay," Pakistan's interior ministry spokesman Brig (retd) Javed Iqbal Cheema said on Tuesday.

Singh, who is currently in a jail in Lahore, was convicted of four bombings in two Pakistani cities in 1991 but insists he is innocent. He says he is a poor farmer and victim of mistaken identity who strayed drunk from his border village into Pakistan.

At his weekly media briefing on Tuesday, Cheema said that that the Pakistani government had received a fresh mercy appeal from the India but that it would not be entertained.

The date of the execution was fixed after Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf turned down his mercy petition.

Musharraf rejected Singh's mercy petition a day after another Indian man, Kashmir Singh, was released following 35 years on death row in Pakistan for spying. On his return to India, Kashmir Singh admitted that he had been a spy.

Dawn

Güncelleme Tarihi: 19 Mart 2008, 12:37