Pakistani human rights activist and former Federal Minister for Human Rights Ansar Burney claims to have taken up the issue of the five-member Pakistani family, arrested by the Karunagappally Police on Saturday. In an online interaction with the Express, Burney said on Monday that he had sent a written request on humanitarian grounds to the Home Affairs Minister in Delhi and the Indian High Commission in Islamabad. Burney said that he was informed about the family’s arrest by ‘friends’ in Quetta in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. On Sunday, Burney had posted on Twitter that the organisation floated by him ‘Ansar Burney Trust’ would take up the cause of the release of the five-member Pakistani family, taken into custody by the police in Kollam, after they were found violating visa regulations. The family is under judicial custody now. Incidentally, Burney’s statements came on a day when media reports quoted him of claiming that the Pakistan Government would release around 400 Indian fishermen and civilian prisoners by the end of August, following the efforts of his Trust. Last week, he had claimed that the ‘efforts’ of the Trust was behind the release of Pakistani national Nuzhat Jahan, who was held for visa violation, by the Delhi High Court. Burney is known as the pioneer of the human rights movement in Pakistan. However, he was caught up in a controversy in May last when the sister of Sarabjit Singh (Indian prisoner who died in a Pakistan Jail) alleged that Burney had demanded `25 crore for Sarabjit’s release. Burney had denied the allegations.