 "Jagtar Singh Johal has been detained in India since his arrest in 2017. Image courtesy: @Reprieve")
As UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer makes his visit to India, some are calling on him to seek the release of a British citizen.
Jagtar Singh Johal, a Sikh man from Scotland, has been detained in India for years. Authorities have accused Johal of funding terrorism and having ties to a banned Sikh separatist group.
Johal’s family and the pro-Khalistan UK-based Sikh Federation have called on Starmer to take up the matter with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Starmer is on a two-day state visit to India, the first to the country since taking office last July. Modi and the UK Prime Minister are set to meet tomorrow (October 9). Modi took to social media to welcome Starmer to India.
“Welcome Prime Minister Keir Starmer on your historic first visit to India with the largest ever trade delegation from the UK. Looking forward to our meeting tomorrow for advancing our shared vision of a stronger, mutually prosperous future,” Modi wrote on X.
But what do we know about Johal?
Let’s take a closer look.
What we know
Johal is a 38-year-old Scottish Sikh. Hailing from Dumbarton, Johal is a human rights campaigner and blogger. According to reports, Johal had come to India to get married in 2017. He was arrested in Punjab, where he has family, just days after his wedding in October.
Johal’s brother Gurpreet, a lawyer and local councillor in Scotland, has been calling on the British government to secure his release. According to reports, Gurpreet and Johal’s parents returned to the UK after the wedding.
Gurpreet told The Quint that Johal was also set to return to the UK. However, he decided to linger in India to sort out her visa application and spend some time together after the wedding. Gurpreet claimed that Johal was taken away by the authorities in broad daylight.
“On the 4th of November, Jagtar went out shopping with his wife and his cousin . They were travelling by car in Jalandhar when it was intercepted and stopped at a busy road. Jagtar was taken out of the car, hooded, and then taken away."
The family initially thought Gurpreet had been kidnapped by criminals.
“His wife and my cousin were standing in the middle of the road in Jalandhar, screaming. She called me, and I was in the UK. The news shook the world underneath our feet because at the time, we thought that it was a kidnapping since Jagtar was a British national in India, someone with money or something. That’s the first thing that I thought of.”
What do authorities say?
The authorities have claimed that Johal has ties to the banned Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF). The group calls for a separate and independent Sikh state named ‘Khalistan’ to be carved out of India. The KLF is said to have carried out a number of targeted killings within Punjab, including the murder of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader, Brigadier Jagdish Gagneja (Retd).
Then Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, at a press conference days after Johal’s arrest, claimed that the police had cracked Gagneja’s case as well as other high-profile murders. Singh claimed “a major conspiracy hatched by ISI to fan communal disturbances and disrupt peace in the state.”
Authorities charged Johal with conspiracy and financing terror activities. They claim he travelled to Paris in 2013 and gave KLF representatives $4,000 (₹3.55 lakh). They claimed this money was used to fund assaults and killings of Hindu nationalists and other religious figures between 2016 and 2017. Johal has also been accused of conspiring to murder Ravinder Gosain, another RSS leader who was shot dead by two assailants in November 2017.
Police accused Johal of having ties with a number of terrorists and KLF groups inside and outside India . The police claimed he raised money for KLF members to buy weapons to use in terror attacks. This includes Taljeet Singh, also known as Jimmy, who is in the UK. Police claimed Johal raised funds for Singh to buy weapons. They say Singh told them about Johal after he was arrested on a weapons charge.
However, a court earlier this year acquitted Johal in the Paris terror funding charge case, saying authorities could not build a credible case against the accused. Johal continues to have over half a dozen cases against him with similar charges – many of which have been taken over by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
The family has accused authorities of physically and mentally torturing Johal, including using electrocution. They claim he has been denied a lawyer and consular access and been forced to sign blank confession documents.
A British human rights group has claimed that Johal was arrested after MI5 and MI6, under the previous Boris Johnson regime, tipped off authorities in India.
UN panel calls detention ‘arbitrary’
A UN panel in 2022 called Johal’s detention in India ‘arbitrary’.
It noted allegations of Johal’s torture included “electric shocks, forcing his limbs into unnatural positions and depriving him of sleep”. It also noted accusations about Johal being made to sign blank confession documents.
“Despite Johal having been in detention for three years and three months, the (probe) agency has not commenced trials in any of these nine cases and has not produced any admissible evidence,” the report stated.
Members of the Sikh community in Dumbarton and human rights groups have been calling for Johal’s release. Former British Prime Ministers Theresa May and Boris Johnson have said they have raised Johal’s detention with Modi.
“I think now is the time where, genuinely, I believe that Keir Starmer has all the ammunition that he requires in order to really stand up for Jagtar and then to bring him back home,” Gurpreet told The Independent.
“I think the Prime Minister is the best-placed person to strongly advocate for Jagtar’s release given that in eight years, no evidence has been produced. The Indians continuously prolong his detention, and if they haven’t produced the evidence in eight years, it is not likely they’re going to produce any evidence,” he added.
“Keir Starmer should be saying enough is enough, and bringing Jagtar back home.”
The Sikh Federation, prior to Starmer’s trip to India, released a letter to the UK Prime Minister. The letter, which claimed that authorities had produced no evidence against Johal, read, “Over 100 MPs wrote to the Foreign Secretary in April following Jagtar’s acquittal in one case, but sadly, there was no meaningful progress towards securing his release and return to the UK."
“Whilst we understand you raised the case of Jagtar Singh Johal at every opportunity with your Indian counterpart over the past 15 months, the Sikh community expected to see concrete progress towards Jagtar’s release and return when you last met Modi in the UK at the end of July.
“We hope you will return from India with good news for Jagtar’s wife and family, and reassurance to the Sikh and wider community on the other two issues.”
With inputs from agencies