AMRITSAR: Lashing at the Indian Government on the deportation of former federal minister and leading Pakistani human rights activist Ansar Burney, Dalbir Kaur sister of condemned Indian prisoner in Pakistan jail Sarabjit Singh said, “Our politician should not play dirty politics”.

Talking on phone from Delhi, Dalbir Kaur said, “I was taken aback when I learnt that our Government has deported Burney back from the Indira Gandhi International Airport by an Emirates Airways flight because of a "look-out" notice against him”.

Ansar Burney, who fought for the release of Indian death row prisoners Kashmir Singh and Sarabjit Singh in Pakistani, was last night deported from India back to Dubai.

Kaur said, “It could have serious repercussions on Sarabjit Singh’s safe return from Pakistan and our Indian bureaucrats and politicians should understand the plight of the family of Sarabjit Singh”.
She added, “Yesterday I was at Delhi Airport to receive him, since I have arranged meeting for him with the senior BJP leader L.K Advani and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi to hold talk with regard to the Pakistani prisoners languishing in the various Indian jails besides safe repatriation of Sarabjit Singh form the Pakistan’s prisons”, said Kaur.

“ My dreams were shuttered, when Indian Government deported Burney, as this act of Indian government would definitely send wrong message to the Pakistan’s Government and it may delay the release of Sarabjit Singh”, Kaur quipped.

Kaur claimed that after deportation, she held talk on phone with Burney who assured her he would continue his efforts to save Sarabjit Singh as this incident would never demoralize him to do the needful for the safe repatriation of Sarabjit to India.

Earlier, Burney had visited India in April this year and met Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon on April 8. Burney had also met Sarabjit's family at village Bikhiwind in Amritsar.

Burney had 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. Kashmir Singh was arrested in Rawalpindi on espionage charges in 1973, was sentenced to death by an army court.

Burney is also playing a key role in efforts to save Sarabjit Singh, who was charged with triggering bomb blasts in Lahore in 1990, from the gallows. It was his efforts that led to Pakistan government's indefinitely postponing execution of Sarabjiit earlier this month.