Hanging Sarabjit is murder of humanity: Burney

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Islamabad, May 2:: Hanging Sarabjit Singh would be tantamount to "murder of humanity" as the Indian national had been convicted without "any substantial evidence", Pakistan's leading human rights activist Ansar Burney has said.

Burney, a former minister for human rights, who has been at the forefront of a campaign to commute Sarabjit's death sentence to life imprisonment, has said there were several legal loopholes in his conviction.

Hanging Sarabjit would be tantamount to "a murder of humanity" as he had been convicted without "any substantial evidence", Burney, who was instrumental in the release of another death row Indian prisoner Kashmir Singh, told reporters.

"I cannot allow the government to hang Sarabjit Singh on the basis that he is a non-Muslim and non-Pakistani, and because of pressure from extremist fundamentalist groups," he said.

Burney, a member of the Advisory Committee to the UN Human Rights Council, condemned protests and threats issued to him by banned terrorist groups and extremist political parties of Pakistan.

Pakistani authorities have apparently put off Sarabjit's hanging, which was earlier set for May 1, by up to three weeks.

Sarabjit, 42, was sentenced to death for alleged involvement in four bomb blasts in Punjab province in 1990.