Yahoo News (1st September 2005)

By Indo Asian News Service

London, Sep 1 (IANS) Human rights activist Ansar Burney Thursday submitted his visa form to the Indian high commission here to visit the family members of Sarabjit Singh, an Indian awaiting death sentence in a Pakistani jail.

Burney, the chairman of the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International, reportedly wanted to speak to the family before filing any mercy petition against Singh's death sentence before Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, reports Online news agency.

The family of Singh, a prisoner who has been in a Pakistani jail since 1990, claims he has been wrongly implicated on mistaken identity and has pleaded that he should be spared capital punishment.

Burney said the delay in issuing visa could harm the prisoner's life as the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International would like to meet the family and ascertain their pleas for his innocence.

Burney was informed by the Indian High Commission that it would seek a nod from New Delhi before granting his application.

'If there is a delay, the responsibility will be on the Indian government as I am trying to save the neck of an Indian national,' he reportedly told the mission.

Singh's family has claimed that he was an innocent farmer who had strayed into Pakistani territory in a drunken state, while farming on his land.

However, the prosecution in Pakistan had accused Singh of being an agent of India's intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and being involved in bomb blasts in the country in the 1990s.

Pakistan's Supreme Court has upheld Singh's death sentence.

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