Brother of imprisoned blogger speaks of anguish ahead of arrest anniversary

The brother of a British man held in prison in India has spoken of his worries about the case, ahead of the seventh anniversary of his arrest on Monday.

Jagtar Singh Johal, a Sikh activist from Dumbarton, was in Punjab, northern India, for his wedding in 2017 when his family said he was arrested and bundled into an unmarked car.

Mr Johal is said to have been tortured, including with electric shocks, and faces the death penalty because of his campaigning for Sikh rights.

He claims he was forced to sign a blank confession after being tortured and made to record a video which was broadcast on Indian TV.

The 37-year-old has been held in solitary confinement in a prison in Delhi since 2019.

In 2022, a United Nations panel acknowledged Mr Johal had been arbitrarily detained in India.

His brother Gurpreet Singh Johal, who is leading the campaign for his release, met with the Foreign Secretary David Lammy on Wednesday and held a session for Scottish MPs in Westminster on Thursday.

He said: “It has been difficult. So on (Monday) when I look at Jagtar’s wife, I’ll get a reminder of the phone call that I had seven years ago when she was hysterical when he was taken. Only she knows how that felt when her husband was taken right in front of her.

“So, it’s difficult in that respect, because she has gone through that. It has been difficult to manage her expectations, because each time a hearing comes up, we expect progress. That becomes difficult at those points.

“Jagtar’s wife would have come to the UK with high hopes that the Government were going to support and protect and bring him back, obviously that hasn’t happened.”

He added: “The longer they keep him, that is the sentence. It doesn’t matter if after 10 to 15 years he is acquitted. They have wasted 10-15 years of his life. That’s his sentence, really, if you’re on remand for 10-15 years, your life’s wasted.”

“It’s difficult because Jagtar’s wife has seen cousins of ours get married, cousins on my side of the family, because they’ve had one child, then they’ve had a second child, and she’s still looking and thinking ‘When’s it going to be my turn’.”

Gurpreet said his brother facing the death penalty raises the stakes even higher. He said he fears the parallels to the case of one man involved in the 2008 Taj Mahal Palace Hotel bombing.

“India has leaked the confession videos twice in cases like this. The last time was the Hotel Taj bomber and very quickly they convicted him and hung him. That’s the fear they’ll do with Jagtar, convict and hang,” he said.

Gurpreet had a 45-minute meeting with Mr Lammy, along with Mr Johal’s MP Douglas McAllister, and officials on Wednesday, where they proposed ways for getting him released and returned to the UK.

He faces nine charges in India, eight of which are in the federal court. It took prosecutors nearly five years to charge him.

Gurpreet said: “It was a positive meeting on the basis that he had already raised Jagtar’s case with his counterpart when he went to India in July. So that’s a reassurance, where it took us years with the previous Government to get to that stage. So having Jagtar’s case on the agenda was reassuring.”

Gurpreet, who works as a solicitor and is a Labour councillor in West Dunbartonshire, added: “Seven years will have elapsed on November 4, to date Jagtar has not been convicted of any offence and he will not be convicted of any offence.

“The Indian Government are sticking to their line that Jagtar is guilty. David (Lammy) has raised the delays of how long it’s taken since he was arrested, and the torture element of the matter.

“At the end of the day, we all know no evidence has been produced against Jagtar. Seven years have elapsed and not one bit of evidence has been produced against him. If they had, they would have produced that and moved on.”