Howrah News Service -  Latest news and headlines on Howrah,West Bengal and World: Pak rights activist Ansar Burney deported back to Dubai

Pak rights activist Ansar Burney deported back to Dubai
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NewsByte on 30 May, 2008 11:40:59
 
Ansar Burney, the leading Pakistani human rights activist who fought for the
release of Indian death row prisoners Kashmir Singh and Sarabjit Singh in
Pakistan, was deported back to Dubai on Saturday night.
Burney, who was the Human Rights Minister in the interim government in
Pakistan, was deported back from the Indira Gandhi International Airport, New
Delhi by an Emirates Airways flight at around 2030 hours because of a "look-out"
notice against him, sources said.
Home Ministry officials, however, could not say who had issued the notice
against Burney and in what connection. Sources in the Ministry of External
Affairs said that Burney's deportation could have been due to "some mistake".
Interestingly, Burney had visited India in April 2008 and met Union Home
Minister Shivraj Patil and Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon on April 8. A
few days prior to that, he had met Sarabjit's family in Amritsar.
Soon after his deportation, Burney's son shot off an e-mail to some journalists
in Delhi informing them of his father's deportation.
Burney successfully secured the release of Kashmir Singh, who spent 35 years on
death row in a Lahore jail, on February 20 this year as President Pervez
Musharraf approved his mercy petition filed on the Indian's behalf by the Human
Rights ministry.
Airport sources said that the reason given to Burney for deportation was that
he had wrongly mentioned his port of embarkation.