A CROSS-PARTY group of more than 70 MPs has written a letter to the Prime Minister demanding he raise the case of a Scot facing the death penalty in India when he goes to the G20 this weekend.
Rishi Sunak is facing increased pressure to urge Indian premier Narendra Modi to release a Dumbarton man who says he has been tortured and arbitrarily detained in the country.
Jagtar Singh Johal, nicknamed Jaggi, has been in prison since 2017, when he was arrested while in India to get married.
The campaign group Reprieve, which has been campaigning for his release and accuses Indian authorities of torturing Johal in prison, said he was hooded, bundled into a car by plainclothes police, and made to sign blank pieces of paper in custody.
Johal, a Sikh rights campaigner, is accused by the Indian authorities of 10 counts of murder and conspiracy to commit murder – which he denies.
Instead, he says he has been targeted by the authorities for his work highlighting alleged human rights abuses against the Sikh minority in India.
In the letter, first reported by the BBC, the group of more than 70 MPs said Johal had been “arbitrarily detained” as they called on the PM to call for Modi to “immediately release” the detained Scot.
One of the signatories, the Tory MP David Davis, attended a meeting on Johal’s case earlier in the year convened by SNP MP Martin Docherty-Hughes, who is the man’s MP.
Davis told the BBC the Government should be “raising the most serious protests”, adding: “That does not seem to be happening at the moment and that is a failure of the Foreign Office to do its most fundamental duty."
In their letter, the MPs said: “Upon his arrest, Jagtar's interrogators electrocuted him, and threatened to douse him in petrol and set him alight. To make the torture stop, Jagtar recorded video statements and signed blank pieces of paper."
There are concerns Johal’s case has been ignored by the PM because he is seeking a trade deal with India.
Davis added: “You don't have to be Palmerston to understand that the rights of a British citizen are the paramount concern of a British government and we do not accept torture as the price of a trade deal. Full stop."
Johal’s brother Gurpreet, who is a lawyer and Labour councillor in Dumbarton, told the BBC: "The fear for the family is that false allegations have become false charges, which could become a false conviction and result in the death penalty."
The Prime Minister’s spokesperson has repeatedly refused to be drawn on whether the case would be raised with Modi.
