Qatar hands death sentence to 8 ex-Indian Navy sailors; India says ‘deeply shocked’
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New Delhi, Oct 26: In a significant development, India on Thursday said it is "deeply shocked" over a Qatari court handing the death penalty to eight Indian nationals and said it is exploring all legal options in the case.
The eight former Indian Navy personnel have been in jail since August last year. The charges against them were not made public by Qatari authorities.
"We have initial information that the Court of First Instance of Qatar has today passed a judgement in the case involving eight Indian employees of Al Dahra company," the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said.
"We are deeply shocked by the verdict of death penalty and are awaiting the detailed judgement. We are in touch with the family members and the legal team, and we are exploring all legal options," it said.
The MEA also stated, "We attach high importance to this case, and have been following it closely. We will continue to extend all consular and legal assistance. We will also take up the verdict with Qatari authorities. Due to the confidential nature of proceedings of this case, it would not be appropriate to make any further comment at this juncture."
What had happened?
In August 2022, eight retired Indian Navy personnel working for a defence services provider company in Qatar were taken detained by the Qatari intelligence service in Doha. Since then, these men were kept in solitary confinement without the Qatari authorities specifying the reason for the detention to the families of the eight men.
They were picked up by the State Security Bureau, the Qatari intelligence agency and the Indian Embassy first learnt about the arrests in mid-September. On September 30, the men were allowed “brief telephonic contact” with family members. The first consular access, a visit by an official of the Indian embassy, was granted on October 3, more than a month after they were taken into custody. Since then, they have been allowed weekly phone calls to family members.
The eight veterans — Captain Navtej Singh Gill, Captain Saurabh Vasisht, Commander Purenendu Tiwari, Captain Birendra Kumar Verma, Commander Sugunakar Pakala, Commander Sanjeev Gupta, Commander Amit Nagpal and Sailor Ragesh — were working at Dahra Global Technologies and Consultancy Services, a defence services provider company owned by an Omani national, a retired squadron leader of the Royal Omani Air Force. He too was arrested along with the eight Indians, but was released in November.
External affairs minister S Jaishankar had told Parliament, last year, that it was a “sensitive” matter and affirmed the case was a matter of “priority” to the Indian government.