India has agreed to repatriate this month at least 29 Pakistanis held in Indian jails, leading Pakistani rights activist Ansar Burney said on Sunday.

Burney, who played a key role in the campaign to get Indian national Sarabjit Singh’s death sentence commuted to life imprisonment, said these 29 prisoners are among a total of 169 Pakistanis, including 19 mental patients and 29 women, currently lodged in Indian jails.

He received a list of these 169 prisoners during a recent visit to India. Burney said he had also received a guarantee that many of these prisoners would be released by the Indian government if the Ansar Burney Trust could confirm their nationality and convince the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi to provide them travel documents.

The trust publicised the list of prisoners in the Pakistani media and located the families of several prisoners to confirm their nationality. Details were forwarded to Pakistan’s foreign ministry and the High Commission in Delhi.

With details provided by the trust and consular access provided by Indian authorities, Pakistani officials visited jails and confirmed the nationality of 29 prisoners in Indian state of Punjab alone, where 49 Pakistanis are currently in jail, Burney said.

The former minister said he expected an announcement about the release of Pakistani prisoners to be made during External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s visit to Pakistan later this month to resume the composite dialogue process.