Convinced that death row convict Sarabjeet Singh is "innocent" and deserved to be released, former Pakistani Minister and noted human rights activist Ansar Burney on Friday demanded that India also consider release of all Pakistanis who had completed their jail terms as a reciprocative gesture.
Leading rights activist Ansar Burney, who was the Human Rights Minister in Pakistan's caretaker government, will visit India next month to meet the family of Sarabjit Singh and gather any evidence about his innocence and to trace Pakistani prisoners in Indian jails. Burney said he would go to India on April 2 at the invitation of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.
Ansar Burney, a top Pakistani lawyer and human rights activist, said that Ghulam Haider, Seema's Pakistani husband, had approached him for help in getting custody of his four children.
A Hindu girl from Punjab province was kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam and is currently being held in a madrassa, leading Pakistani rights activist Ansar Burney said on Friday.Burney said his rights organisation, the Ansar Burney trust international, had learnt that 15-year-old Gajri, the daughter of Mengha Ram, was abducted by a Muslim neighbour from her home at Katchi Mandi, Liaquatpur, in Rahim Yar Khan district on December 21, 2009.
The Ansar Burney Trust International has taken up the issue of Azhar Ansari, 17, and his cousin Zohaib Ansari, 10, with India's ministries of home affairs and external affairs for their early release. "Their only wrongdoing was that they had crossed the border into India illegally by digging the earth under the barbed wire fence which divides India and Pakistan at the Munabao border and sneaked into Barmer in India," the statement said.
Ansar Burney, the leading Pakistani Human Rights activist on Wednesday said that he would file a fresh mercy petition to Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on behalf of Sarabjit Singh on Thursday.
The Pakistan government has told leading human rights activist Ansar Burney's family that it had no role in his deportation from India to Dubai, his brother said on Saturday.Ansar Burney, who played a key role in the release of Indian death row prisoner Kashmir Singh and has been campaigning for clemency for another death row prisoner Sarabjit Singh, was deported from New Delhi shortly after he arrived at the Indira Gandhi Airport on Friday night.
Pakistani rights activist Ansar Burney on Monday he would launch a campaign against corruption and terrorism in his country after Eid-ul-Fitr, mirroring an anti-graft drive by activist Anna Hazare in India that has gained thousands of followers. Pakistan is confronting a "dire and painful period in its history, with rampant and continuously growing corruption and terrorism destroying every fabric of our nation and any prospects of a decent future for our children".
Pakistan human rights activist Ansar Burney is willing to take custody of the body of Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorist Ajmal Kasab who was executed on Wednesday.
Leading rights activist Ansar Burney has asked the Pakistan government to immediately free three Indian prisoners who have either completed their jail terms or whose release has been ordered by the court. Indian national Surjeet Singh alias Makhan Singh had completed his prison term on October 30, 2010 but he continues to be held in prison, Burney said in letters sent to President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani.
The 22 crew members, including six Indians, of Egyptian merchant vessel MV Suez will reach Karachi before being sent back to their respective countries, Pakistani human rights activist Ansar Burney has said. Burney, who has played a pivotal role in securing the release of the crew, hoped the return of the Indian sailors would be a "gift" to India. Besides the six Indians, there are five Pakistanis and one Sri Lankan among the crew.
An Indian national imprisoned in a jail in Lahore has died of tuberculosis, Pakistan authorities said on Thursday, after leading human rights activist Ansar Burney claimed that the death had occurred in 'suspicious' circumstances. Mushtaq Awan, the Superintendent of Kot Lakhpat jail, said Indian national Suraj Singh was mentally deranged and had died on Wednesday of tuberculosis. Singh, a resident of Jaipur, was arrested a year ago.
India is ready to release more than 100 Pakistanis lodged in prisons unilaterally, Pakistani human rights campaigner Ansar Burney said on Monday. He told reporters after meeting foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon that he would try to persuade Pakistan government to release Indian prisoners reciprocating New Delhi's good gesture.
Pakistan's incoming government should convert the death sentence of Indian national Sarabjit Singh into life imprisonment on "humanitarian grounds" and ensure his early release, caretaker Human Rights Minister Ansar Burney said on Monday. President Pervez Musharraf had on March 19 deferred the hanging of Sarabjit, scheduled for April 1, by 30 days after receiving an appeal for clemency from the Indian government and the condemned man's family.
Observing that the "mishandling" of the issue of Ajmal Iman's nationality by the government had brought bad name to Pakistan, leading human rights activist Ansar Burney has demanded the immediate resignation of Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik.
After Kashmir Singh, leading Pakistani rights activist Ansar Burney has found another Indian on death row, Karpal Singh, languishing in a jail in Punjab province since 1992.
In a move that could benefit Indian death row prisoner Sarabjit Singh, leading Pakistani rights activist Ansar Burney on Thursday asked President Pervez Musharraf to convert all death sentences in the country to life imprisonment. "This is an issue on which we have spoken several times during our meetings and an issue on which I have already sent several appeals," the former human rights minister said.
Hanging Sarabjit Singh would be tantamount to murder of humanity as the Indian national had been convicted without any substantial evidence, Pakistan's leading human rights activist Ansar Burney has said. "I cannot allow the government to hang Sarabjit Singh on the basis that he is a non-Muslim and non-Pakistani, and because of pressure from extremist fundamentalist groups," he said. Pakistani authorities have apparently put off Sarabjit's hanging.
Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh, who is on death row in a Pakistani jail, appears to be a case of mistaken identity, former Pakistani minister and United Nations Human Rights Council advisory committee member Ansar Burney said in Chandigarh on Friday.After collecting evidence in the shape of a video CD and copy of an FIR from the family members of Sarabjit, Burney said, "Prima facie it appears to be a case of mistaken identity.
Pakistan's caretaker Human Rights Minister Ansar Burney has appealed to President Pervez Musharraf to convert the death sentence of Indian national Sarabjit Singh to life imprisonment on humanitarian grounds.Burney sent an appeal for mercy to Musharraf on Wednesday to convert the death sentence of Sarabjit into life imprisonment on humanatarian grounds, as he has already spent 17 years in jail which is more than life imprisonment.
Pakistani teenager Nasir Sultan, whose craze for a career in Bollywood landed him in a jail in Punjab, reunited with his father on Friday after being handed over to Pakistani authorities in Attari sans an unfulfilled dream of meeting his idol Shah Rukh Khan.
Pakistani human rights activist Ansar Burney was denied entry into India on his arrival at the New Delhi airport last week due to a 'misunderstanding' and the matter was subsequently sorted out, a Foreign Office spokesman said in Islamabad on Thursday.The Indian government was in touch with Burney, former Pakistani human rights minister, after the incident and the matter had been sorted out, Mohammad Sadiq said.
An embarrassed Home Ministry on Saturday expressed regrets for sending back former Pakistan Human Rights Minister Ansar Burney upon his arrival at Delhi Airport on Friday night and said he was always welcome to visit India.
Burney, who was the human rights minister in the interim government in Pakistan, was deported back from the Indira Gandhi International Airport by an Emirates Airways flight at Airways flight at around 2030 hours because of a "look-out" notice against him, they said. It was, however, not immediately clear who had issued the notice against him and in what connection.
Burney, who is a member of the Advisory Committee of the UN Human Rights Council, said that 'with so many facts in favour of Sarabjit and so little to justify the death sentence awarded to him, it seemed Sarabjit's biggest crime may have been his Indian nationality as no unbiased court would ever sentence a man to death in such a weak case'.
Stating that the change of government in the neighbouring country had strengthened their hope for the release of Sarbajit, Sarabjit Singh's sister Dalbir Kaur said she would go to the Pakistan High Commission to apply for the visas immediately after obtaining the passports.
Casting doubts on Pakistan's "crackdown" on activists of Jamaat-Ud-Dawa (JuD) - a political arm of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Ansar Burney, a former Pakistani minister, on Thursday asked why "arrested" terrorists have not been produced in court.
Pakistan's former Federal Minister for Human Rights and Expert Advisor in the United Nations Human Rights Council at Geneva, Burney, who arrived in terror struck Mumbai in the wee hours of Sunday, wasted no time in showing his solidarity with India in its war against terrorism. "They are beast of jungles and killers of humanity," was Burney's instant reaction about the terror carnage in Mumbai that left 183 dead.
During his visit to India, Burney is expected to meet senior officials, including the ministers for home affairs and external affairs, and human rights activists in an effort to secure the release of all Pakistani prisoners who had completed their sentences.
The deportation of Pakistani human rights activist Ansar Burney from India could delay the release of Indian death row prisoner Sarabjit Singh in Lahore, Singh's sister said on Saturday and asked Indian politicians not to play "dirty politics".
Promising to help Sarabjit Singh, Pakistani human rights campaigner Ansar Burney on Tuesday said he will seek pardon from the relatives of those killed in bomb blasts allegedly involving the Indian prisoner. Burney, who met Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon in Delhi, said he would also take up the case of another Indian national languishing in a Pakistani jail for 28 years.
Dalbir Kaur, sister of Indian prisoner in Pakistan Sarabjit Singh, is hopeful that Pakistan's Human Rights minister Ansar Burney will bring some good news for her and her family members after his meeting with President Pervez Musharraf. Burney had promised Dalbir Kaur that he would take up the matter Musharraf soon after a daily said Sarabjit would be hanged to death on April 1. He had been dubbed a RAW agent and sentenced to death.
Kashmir Singh will be released from Lahore's Central Jail and taken by road to the Wagah border by Pakistan's caretaker human rights minister Ansar Burney, where he will be reunited with families and well-wishers.
"I still remember the day I went to Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore and Kashmir Singh told me his love story and how he got married to Paramjit Kaur. After listening to him, I was so moved I decided to reunite the pair," Burney told reporters on Wednesday. He said the prisoner was weeping uncontrollably within the jail walls and "he told me he was not worried about his life, but always thought about his wife."
The Pakistani mother of 15-year-old Ramzan on Monday declined India's offer of assistance to her in travelling to the country to identify her son.
The sister of slain Indian national Sarabjit Singh broke down and wept on Thursday as she received his belongings, including copies of Hanuman Chalisa and Quran, six months after he died following a brutal attack inside a Pakistani jail.
23-year-old Geeta, who can neither speak nor hear, is stuck in Pakistan for 13 years
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