Sukhpreet Kaur, wife of “Manjit Singh”, points at a picture of her husband at home on Saturday. (PTI)

New Delhi, Aug. 21: The alleged Indian agent to be hanged in Pakistan is an innocent man, his family and Research and Analysis Wing sources say.

The Pakistan Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence awarded to “Manjit Singh” by an anti-terrorist court, which convicted him of being a RAW agent and of involvement in several blasts.

RAW sources denied that the man was an agent, and said he is actually Sarbjit Singh of Bhikhivind village near Amritsar, as his family has maintained.

Sarbjit’s sister Dalbir Kaur and wife Sukhpreet Kaur say he strayed into Pakistan after a bout of drinking on the night of August 28, 1990. The Pakistanis arrested him two days later.

RAW officials, however, are baffled by the letter sent to the Prime Minister by R.K. Yadav, general secretary of the Cabinet Secretariat (RAW) Employees’ Association. The letter requests Manmohan Singh to “personally” take up the condemned man’s case with the Pakistani President and secure his release.

The officials say this is not how the intelligence agency works. When an agent is caught, the agency never owns up to its links with him or her. “There have been several instances when we have lost a very good agent, but we never acknowledged them as our agents,” a former RAW official said.

Yadav’s letter says that to save the Indian, the government should, if possible, offer a trade-off with “a Pakistani national facing identical charges in India”.

Agency officials consider it an unusual request from an official attached with their organisation. “RAW seems to have softened up a lot recently,” a former official said. “What is the use of undercover operations if agencies start owning up to their people? We have caught so many ISI agents ? have they ever owned up to one?”

Singh’s family, however, has decided to submit a mercy petition to Pervez Musharraf.

The Canada-based South Asian Human Rights Group will meet Musharraf and seek a pardon for the “innocent man”.

The family plans to meet Manmohan Singh and his predecessor, A.B. Vajpayee.

“My brother Sarbjit Singh is innocent. He is not ‘Manjit Singh’ as Pakistan’s agencies have labelled him. Sarbjit inadvertently crossed the border near Khalra, about 4 km from our home,” sister Dalbir Kaur said.