By IANS
Chandigarh : Former Pakistani federal minister and human rights activist Ansar Burney Friday said he would closely examine the documents provided to him on Indian national Sarabjit Singh’s innocence and try to save him from gallows in Pakistan.
Sarabjit, who is known as Manjit Singh in Pakistan, has been held guilty of bombings in Lahore and Multan in 1990 that left 14 people dead and is to be executed April 30.
He was to be hanged March 31 but the intervention of the Indian government led to the execution being postponed by a month.
Talking to reporters after meeting the chairman of the Punjab Human Rights Commission, retired chief justice R.S. Mongia here, Burney said he would try his best to put fresh evidence in Sarabjit’s case before the Pakistani establishment.
“Prima facie, Sarabjit’s case appears to be that of mistaken identity. I will carry the documents to Pakistan and examine these legally to try to save him,” Burney said.
Burney, who was instrumental in getting Indian prisoner Kashmir Singh released from a Pakistani prison after 35 years last month, earlier said he would raise Sarabjit’s case before the UN if the Pakistani government did not grant him clemency.
Sarabjit’s sister Dalbir Kaur claims that he is innocent and had crossed into Pakistan inadvertently in an inebriated state Aug 28, 1990.
She provided Burney with various documents – including a copy of the police first information report (FIR) when he went missing in 1990, his ration card, copy of the voters list, his bank passbook, driving license and even a video recording of Pakistani national Salim Shaukat who had admitted to a private TV network that he was forced to give witness against Sarabjit.