Thoughts on what will happen to Jaggi Singh Johal?

[Premi5]

https://www.thenational.scot/news/19419206.jagtar-singh-johal-threat-name-senior-tories-scots-case/

A SIKH advocacy body has threatened to name the Tory ministers and MPs it says privately oppose the UK Government’s handling of a Scottish man’s detention in India.

Senior Tories who’ve veered from the government line could be identified in protest at what’s seen as Westminster inaction. The move would be deeply embarrassing for Downing Street.

In a debate last week, MPs from the SNP, Labour, Lib Dems and Democratic Unionist Party urged the UK Government to help Jagtar Singh Johal, the Sikh blogger now facing a possible death sentence due to a confession he says was extracted through torture.

The Dumbarton fitness fan, nicknamed Jaggi, went to India in 2017 for his wedding and was bundled into a van by plain clothes officers a fortnight later. He says he’s been electrocuted and heard threats that his wife was in danger and it’s feared that he may be sentenced to death for alleged involvement in an assassination plot against Hindu figures.

More than three years on without a trial, MPs backed Martin Docherty-Hughes, the Singh Johal family’s MP, in calling for the case to be considered an arbitrary detention, as with Iran detainee Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliff.

 

Asia Minister Nigel Adams said Singh Johal’s situation “does remain a priority for the UK Government and it must be resolved in line with due process and without unreasonable delay” and they’ve “thoroughly considered concerns regarding arbitrary detention and the death penalty in this case”.

The Sikh Federation UK says that doesn’t square with private conversations held between senior Tories and community figures. Its general secretary Bhai Narinderjit Singh, now says he’ll name them if the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) doesn’t get behind Jaggi.

Singh said: “Senior Conservative politicians have privately admitted to Sikh community representatives up and down the country that they believe Jagtar Singh Johal is held in arbitrary detention in India and the UK Government must stand up for British citizens. These include several cabinet ministers, over a half a dozen other ministers and more than 30 other Conservative MPs, including former ministers.”

“We are deeply concerned and will do all we can to protect the life of Jagtar Singh Johal as we approach the 4th anniversary of his torture and arbitrary detention on November 4, 2021. If the FCDO fail to acknowledge Jagtar is being arbitrarily detained we may on the fourth anniversary be forced to reveal the names of dozens of Conservative politicians, including ministers who are in no doubt Jagtar is being arbitrarily detained by the Indian authorities.”

In a briefing sent to UK MPs, Indian authorities accused Johal of “repeated attempts to subvert the judicial process on one or other pretext”.

[Premi5]

https://www.thenational.scot/news/19498991.lawyer-representing-scot-indian-jail-on-leaked-phone-surveillance-list/

Lawyer representing Scot in Indian jail 'on leaked phone surveillance list’

By Kirsteen Paterson  @kapatersonJournalist

THE lawyer representing the Scotsman held in “arbitrary detention” in India since 2017 is on a phone-hacking list, according to a report from the country.

Advocate Jaspal Singh Manjhpur acts for Jagtar Singh Johal, who has accused Indian authorities of torturing him to extract a false confession related to the funding of an assassination plot.

MPs say the treatment of the fitness fan, a Sikh blogger who was in India to get married, amounts to arbitrary detention – but the UK Government hasn’t adopted that definition.

Johal, known as Jaggi, maintains his innocence and his representatives have accused the judicial system of deliberately drawing out his detention through repeated court delays.

Now Indian publication The Wire has reported that Manjhpur’s name appears on a leaked list of thousands of numbers analysed by the Pegasus Project, an investigative team involving more than 80 journalists from 17 news organisations in 10 countries and backed by Amnesty International’s Security Lab.

Manjhpur was, it is claimed, chosen as a possible candidate for surveillance in 2018 using military-grade spyware developed by Israel’s NSO Group.

The system is licensed to tackle serious and organised crime and terrorism and the year coincides with Manjhpur’s involvement in the Scot’s case. In August 2018, shortly after his name was added to the list, he came to Scotland to meet Johal’s family.

Martin Docherty-Hughes, their MP, has called the development “deeply troubling”, adding: “We should not be surprised by these allegations.”

Manjhpur, a human rights advocate, told The Wire: “I know that I’m a person of interest for the Union government. I’ve always been.”

Johal is accused of giving £3000 to a plot to kill eight people from 2016-17.

His family believes his arrest and detention is related to his blogging on the site Never Forget 84, which is dedicated to the anti-Sikh pogroms that took place that year in India.

In a document circulated to UK MPs in June, Indian authorities claimed he’s never raised torture claims with a judge, has tried to “subvert the judicial process” from his cell and is trying to trick Scots into supporting him.

[dallysingh101]

1 hour ago, Premi5 said:

Manjhpur was, it is claimed, chosen as a possible candidate for surveillance in 2018 using military-grade spyware developed by Israel’s NSO Group.

 

[Kau89r8]

Interesting.. 

[Kau89r8]

 

[Kau89r8]

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[Premi5]

https://www.thenational.scot/news/19504660.jagtar-singh-johal-nicola-sturgeon-meets-jailed-dumbarton-mans-family/

Jagtar Singh Johal: Nicola Sturgeon meets jailed Dumbarton man's family

10th August

By Abbi Garton-Crosbie  @agarton_crosbieMultimedia Political Reporter

First Minister meets family of Scottish man jailed in India to offer support

 

     0 comment

 

 

THE First Minister has met with the family of a Scottish man facing the death penalty in India and offered the Scottish Government’s support.

Jagtar Singh Johal, from Dumbarton, was “kidnapped” by Indian authorities and bundled into an unmarked vehicle just days after his wedding in 2017.

 

https://twitter.com/SikhPA/status/1425342242252804096?s=20

[Premi5]

 

[dallysingh101]

Sturgeon urges Raab to assist Scottish Sikh man allegedly tortured in India

First minister raises ‘deep concerns’ about case of Jagtar Singh Johal, who has been imprisoned for four years awaiting trial

 

Jagtar Singh Johal, centre, being escorted to a court in Punjab state in 2017. He is facing the death penalty after allegedly being tortured into confessing involvement in a terrorist conspiracy. Photograph: Shammi Mehra/AFP/Getty Images

 

Libby Brooks

Sun 22 Aug 2021 14.52 BST

 

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Nicola Sturgeon has written to the embattled foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, urging him to intervene in the case of a Scottish Sikh man who has been imprisoned in India for nearly four years awaiting trial, and is facing the death penalty after a confession allegedly extracted under torture.

In Sturgeon’s first formal intervention on the case, seen exclusively by the Guardian, the first minister expresses the Scottish government’s “deep concerns” about Jagtar Singh Johal’s detention without trial – as well as his allegations of torture and mistreatment by Indian authorities while in custody.

 

The letter adds further pressure on the UK government after nearly 140 parliamentarians, including the former Brexit secretary David Davis, the former international development secretary Hilary Benn and the SNP leader at Westminster, Ian Blackford, wrote to Raab in February asking him to seek Jagtar’s release.

 

Jagtar is being supported by the legal NGO Reprieve, whose deputy director Harriet McCulloch described his situation as “as clear a case of arbitrary detention as we’ve come across”. She said that, despite numerous court appearances, his trial has been repeatedly delayed at the request of the prosecution, with basic information denied to his defence counsel.

McCulloch said that Jagtar, a Sikh human rights activist from Dumbarton, was violently arrested in Punjab, northern India, in October 2017, after which he was tortured with electricity into confessing his involvement in an alleged terrorist conspiracy.

It has been alleged he provided £3,000 to a Sikh who was planning to kill members of the extremist nationalist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a charge he denies.

 

In the letter, Sturgeon urges Raab to personally meet Jagtar’s family after her own meeting with his brother Gurpreet Singh Johal this month.

“Gurpreet expressed his disappointment with the support his brother and their family have received from the FCDO [Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office]. He also questioned why the British prime minister did not raise Jagtar’s case with the Indian prime minister in April this year.”

Boris Johnson has endeavoured to cement economic ties with India as part of the UK government’s wider foreign policy strategy by holding online talks with its prime minister, Narenda Modi, in May and during the G7 summit in Cornwall in June.

Gurpreet Singh Johal told the Guardian: “I am very grateful for the Scottish government’s support, but my brother really needs the Westminster government to seek his release and bring him home.

“Our family is devastated that almost four years after he was abducted and tortured, the Foreign Office has still not fulfilled its promise to take ‘extreme action’ on his case. I hope the foreign secretary will meet with me and do everything in his power to save Jaggi’s life.”

 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/aug/22/sturgeon-urges-raab-to-assist-scottish-sikh-man-allegedly-tortured-in-india

[Ranjeet01]

Jaggi will be released when India and the UK agree on whatever backroom deal. 

The UK will need to make certain concessions.