After being on the death row for 20 years over bombing charges, Indian national Sarabjit Singh is being released with Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari today commuting his death sentence.

Zardari commuted Sarabjit's death sentence to life term which he has already completed having been in jail beyond 14 years.

The 49-year-old Sarabjit, convicted and sentenced to death for alleged involvement in a string of bombings in Punjab in 1990 that killed 14 people has maintained his innocence and said that his was a case of “mistaken identity”.

Zardari has directed authorities to release him if he has completed his prison term, official sources said today.

Following the summary or official proposal issued by the presidency, Law Minister Farooq Naek today asked the Interior Ministry to take steps to immediately release Sarabjit as he had completed a life term.

PTI quoting sources said, Sarabjit could be released in the next few days after the Interior Ministry and the Home Department of Punjab complete necessary formalities.

Sarabjit is currently being held at Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore. President Zardari's action came a little over a month after ailing Pakistani virologist Khalil Chishti, detained in Rajasthan for nearly two decades on the charge of involvement in a murder, was freed on the orders of India's Supreme Court so that he could meet his family in Karachi.

Sarabjit had sent a fresh clemency appeal to President Zardari last month after the release of Chishti. Sarabjit was given the death sentence under Pakistan's Army Act.

Though Sarabjit was set to be hanged in 2008, Pakistani authorities put off his execution indefinitely after former premier Yousuf Raza Gilani intervened.

His family has said he wandered across the border in an inebriated condition and was arrested by Pakistani authorities.