02 May 2004	Sunday	11 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

PESHAWAR May 1: The human rights activists from South Asian countries on Saturday observed that the restoration of complete bilateral relations between India and Pakistan was necessary for the lasting peace in the region.

A four-member visiting delegation of the Colombo-based NGO, South Asians for Human Rights (Sahr), hoped that India and Pakistan would work jointly for peace in the region by giving an end to the hostile environments in their backyards. They advised them to promote cultural, academic and commercial activities for a better and promising future of their two people.

Sahr secretary-general Shirani de Fontgalland (Sri Lanka), a former editor of Daily Indian Express B. G. Verghese (India), Dr Devendra Raj Panday (Nepal) and Javed Yousuf (Sri Lanka) spoke at the Guest's Hour programme of the Peshawar Press Club and shared their views with the newsmen on the growing human rights violations in the South Asian countries.

Speaking about the objectives of the SAHR, Ms Shirani said it was an independent organization, which was founded by the human rights activists of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka in Delhi in 2001 to protect rights of minorities and other disadvantaged groups in this region. She said that the Sahr had also formed a South Asian People's Commission on Rights of Minorities in Colombo in Dec 2003 to monitor the human rights violations in the Sahr member countries, she added.

She said that a former Indian prime minister, I. K. Gujral, was its chairman, while Asma Jehangir of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan was its co-chairperson. The Sahr is being guided and run by a 21-member apex body of lawyers, journalists, social scientists and human right activists hailing from its five founding member countries, she added.

Dr Panday said the SAHR's commission would visit all the five countries and compile a report on human rights at the end of the year. "We are meeting people from all segments of society to collect maximum material for our report. It is our first visit to a Sahr member country. We would visit India later on", he added.

Mr Verghese said extremism was also an issue and it made a sense when it was translated into petty politics and triggered communal or sectarian riots. He said vested interest and other criminal lobbies had a ghastly role in such incidents.

He also inquired about the Frontier Crimes Regulation, a carry-over the colonial rule in the Sub-continent of India. The delegation was also informed about the meager spending in the social sector and growing unemployment in the country.

Mr Yousuf, who heads the Press Complaint Commission, a forum set up by the Sri Lanka's newspapers owners to provide a relief to the print media victims, observed that the growing ethnic, political and sectarian violence had stalled the social development in the region.

President Peshawar Press Club thanked the visiting people and hoped that such reciprocal visits would help in promoting the bilateral relations and regional cooperation amongst these countries.