India to continue pressing Pak for Sarabjit Singh's release

NEW DELHI: Indian external affairs minister, Salman Khursheed Tuesday assured the family of Sarabjit Sigh that India would continue to press Pakistan for his release on humanitarian grounds.

Khursheed held out the assurance during a meeting with a sister and a daughter of Sarabjit Singh here.

He said he would ask the Indian union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde to take up the issue of Sarabjit with Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik who is slated to visit India this week.

Following the meeting, Sarabjit Singh's sister said the Indian external affairs minister would try to arrange a meeting of the family with Rehman Malik.

Sarabjit Singh was arrested in 1990 for his alleged role in blasts in Multan and Lahore, in which 14 people were killed. His family has maintained that he was a farmer who crossed the border by mistake, and has spent decades paying for it.