“As per the information available with the Ministry, the number of Indian prisoners, including under-trials, in foreign jails at present is 8441, out of which 4,389 are lodged in jails of Gulf countries (United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman).”
— V Muraleedharan, Minister of State for External Affairs in Lok Sabha
More than 8,000 Indians are currently in foreign jails. Of these 4,389 are in Gulf countries, Indian Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan said on December 9. “As per the information available with the Ministry, the number of Indian prisoners, including under-trials, in foreign jails at present is 8441, out of which 4,389 are lodged in jails of Gulf countries (United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman),” Muraleedharan said in response to a question in Lok Sabha.
While responding to a query on whether the inmates lodged in UAE jails could serve the rest of their sentence in Indian jails, Muraleedharan said that under the Agreement on Transfer of Sentenced Persons (TSP), which was signed on November 23, 2011, Indian nationals lodged in UAE prisons can be transferred to India to serve the remainder of their sentence and vice-versa.
“We’ve been responding to this regularly. Our embassy is actively pursuing the case. We understand that detained Indians are able to speak to their families in India over the telephone now, some of them have families staying in Doha.”
— MEA spokesperson
“The transfer of a sentenced person to his country of nationality under the TSP Agreement is dependent on completion of various formalities such as prisoner’s willingness to be transferred, consent of the transferring and receiving country, availability of complete documentation necessary for processing the request, clearance from appropriate agencies, etc. Requests for requisite documents for processing the transfer of sentenced persons have been sent to the UAE side,” he added.
The response from the Indian Minister came after the case of eight former naval officers who were detained in Doha. On December 1, MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said that India was regularly responding to the case of ex-Indian Navy officers arrested in Qatar as the embassy was actively pursuing the issue. He said that the detained Indians are in touch with family members in India.
“We’ve been responding to this regularly. Our embassy is actively pursuing the case. We understand that detained Indians are able to speak to their families in India over the telephone now, some of them have families staying in Doha,” MEA spokesperson said.
The MEA spokesperson further added that some detainees had families in Doha and were being allowed to have physical meetings on a weekly basis.
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