Pakistan says sets date to hang Indian spy Sarabjit Singh

LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has rejected the plea for mercy of an Indian convicted of spying and the man will be hanged on April 1, a senior prison officer in Lahore said on Sunday.

Sarabjit Singh was sentenced to death in 1991 for spying and carrying out four bomb blasts that killed 14 people.

Musharraf turned down Singh's petition for clemency on March 4, according to Javed Latif, the superintendent of Lahore's Kot Lakhpat prison.

"We have his death warrant and the execution will take place on April 1," he told Reuters.

Singh's family has said he crossed the border into Pakistan accidentally in 1990 while he was drunk.

Pakistani officials say he was arrested while trying to slip back into India after the bomb blasts.

On March 4, Musharraf accepted an appeal for mercy from and ordered the release of another Indian, Kashmir Singh, a convicted spy who had spent 35 years on death row in Pakistan.

Pakistan said he was released on humanitarian grounds.

A week after Kashmir Singh's release, Indian authorities handed over the body of a Pakistani, Khalid Mehmood, who went to India to watch a cricket match in 2005 but was later arrested and died in prison.

The Pakistani government and Mehmood's family said he was innocent and had been tortured, but the Indian government said he had been found with sensitive documents and died of a stomach ailment.

India and Pakistan began a peace process in 2004, but remain deeply suspicious of each other, having fought three wars since partition in 1947.