By NNN-PTI,
Islamabad : Leading Pakistani rights activist Ansar Burney, who played a key role in the campaign to commute the death sentence of Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh, will visit India this month to take up the problems of Pakistanis being held in the neighbouring country’s jails.
Burney will leave for India on October 25 to meet human rights groups and senior Indian officials to discuss the problems of prisoners.
In a statement issued on Saturday, Burney said he hoped that dozens of Indian prisoners would soon be released from Pakistani jails and reunited with their family members.
Burney said he was also making efforts for the release of all Indian and Pakistani fishermen being held in jails in both countries so that they could be sent home without further delay.
India and Pakistan arrest hundreds of fishermen every year for crossing the maritime boundary.
Burney, a former human rights minister, stressed he wanted to see peace on the borders instead of war and hatred. “My efforts are to become a bridge to bring the two nations nearer to each other,” he emphasised.
The right activist said he would make efforts during his stay in India to secure the release of all Pakistanis who had completed their prison terms but had not been freed. There are over 50 such prisoners in Amritsar jail alone and one of them, Mohammad Asif, had died of medical complications on October 11, he said.
Burney said he would meet senior Indian officials, including the ministers for home affairs and external affairs, and rights activists in an effort to secure the release of all Pakistani prisoners.
Burney recently asked the Pakistan government to commute all death sentences, including that of Sarabjit, to life imprisonment, saying a majority of death row prisoners had been wrongly convicted.