The ashes of prominent peace and human rights activist and senior Indian journalist, Kuldip Nayar, would be immersed in the River Ravi near Lahore after a ceremony in which a sampling would be planted at the Government College University Lahore in September, said a statement issued by the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education & Research (PILER) on Friday
According to the statement, the ashes were brought in Pakistan by Pakistani peace activists including former judge of Supreme Court of Pakistan Justice (retired) Nasir Aslam Zahid, Executive Director of PILER Karamat Ali, Haya Eman Zahid and Altaf Khoso advocate. The activists visited India and attended a roundtable conference on the issue of Pakistan-India prisoners at the India Islamic Cultural Centre, New Delhi on August 31, 2018.
Kuldip Nayyar was born in Sialkot and completed his education in Lahore. He passed his B.A. (Honors) from the Forman Christian College (FCC) Lahore and L.L.B from the Law College Lahore. He was the founding member of Pakistan India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) and worked for people-to-people contact of Pakistan and India.
It was not the first time that ashes of any Indian were being immersed into any Pakistani river. In 2008, the ashes of Nirmala Deshpande, an Indian peace and human rights activist, were immersed in the Indus River at the steps of the Sadhu Bela temple Sukkur, Sindh. She expressed her desire to immerse her ashes into different South Asian countries, as she always wanted to make South Asia a region free of nuclear weapons.
Published in Daily Times, September 8th 2018.
