ISLAMABAD, Aug 24: The embassy of Sudan has assured human rights activist Ansar Burney that it will extend all-out support and cooperation for the early release of 60 Pakistanis from a private jail in Sudan.

Mr Burney informed the embassy about the plight of the 60 young Pakistanis languishing in a private jail at Bageer near Khartoum for the last five months.

He said these Pakistanis had paid huge amounts to a recruiting agency in Pakistan, allegedly owned by a minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, which arranged for their visit visas for Sudan promising that they would get resident visas and job in an oil company once they reached Khartoum.

But when they arrived in Khartoum on March 27, they were allegedly sold to an Indian agent, who kept them in a private jail and made them work as slaves.

The names of the Pakistanis are: Javed Khadim, Shamsher Hussain Shahid, Ramzan Ashraf, Arshad Mehmood, Kashif Maqbool, Ejaz Mohammed Hussain, Tariq Aziz, Imran Saleem, Mohammed Ayaz Khan, Haroon Parvez, Zafar Iqbal, Tausif Khaliq, Abbas Ishaq, Mohammed Jamil Hussain, Mohammed Atiq, Mohammed Basharat, Mohammed Khalil, Abdul Rehman, Mohammed Nadeem Khan, Jannat Hussain, Mohammed Yaqub Khan, Dilshan, Mohammed Bashir, Mohammed Shehzad, Amjad Khan, Aslam Khan, Iftikhar Hussain, Liaquat Hussain, Nazeer Hussain, Saghir Abbasi, Mohammed Rasheed Khan, Yasir Gulzar Abbasi, Mohammed Ashfaq Khan, Arshad Khan, Raja Khaliq Ahmed, Wajid Mumtaz, Basharat Abbasi, Raja Ejaz Khan, Raja Nisar Khan, Mohammed Shabbir Khan, Mohammed Irshad Khan, Zakir Mehmood, Mohammed Mumtaz Hussain, Mohammed Ijaz, Khalid Hussain, Khalid Mehmood, Kashif Fazal, Mohammed Ishaq Khan, Zakaullah, Nasrullah Khan, Nisa Tanaz Khan, Mohammed Iqbal, Mureed Abbas, Umer Hayat, Mohammed Sarfraz Khan, Ziaullah, Samiullah, Zaheer Abbas and two others.—PPI