[1][4] After being sentenced to an indefinite jail term, he said that he "was tortured third degree for the first few months by the authorities"[1] as they pressured him to confess to being an Indian spy.
Singh was lodged in seven different jails in Pakistan and was "kept in solitary confinement and remained chained for 17 long years.
In 1986, when the Pakistan government released a few Indian prisoners accused of spying from the Lahore jail, the family knew that he was alive but on a death sentence.
[7] In 2008, the caretaker human rights minister Ansar Burney spotted him while visiting the Lahore jail.
"[9] On seeing this, President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf expressed shock and disbelief and accepted this mercy petition and ordered for release and repatriation of Singh to India.