Qatar Court Accepts India’s Appeal Against Death Penalty for Eight Former Indian Navy Personnel
New Delhi: In a significant development, a Qatar court has accepted India’s appeal against the death penalty imposed on eight former Indian Navy personnel. The individuals were sentenced last month in an alleged case of espionage. Sources have indicated that the Qatari court will schedule a hearing date after thoroughly examining the appeal.
According to reports, the eight men were arrested in August 2022 by Qatar’s intelligence agency on charges of spying. However, the Qatari authorities have not made the specific charges against them public yet. Despite their repeated bail petitions being rejected, the Court of First Instance in Qatar pronounced the verdict against them in the previous month.
Indian authorities have been granted consular access to the detained individuals and have been actively working to secure their release.
The former Indian Navy officers who have been arrested are Commander Purnendu Tiwari, Commander Sugunakar Pakala, Commander Amit Nagpal, Commander Sanjeev Gupta, Captain Navtej Singh Gill, Captain Birendra Kumar Verma, Captain Saurabh Vasisht, and Sailor Ragesh Gopakumar. These veterans possess a distinguished service record of up to 20 years in the Indian Navy and have held crucial positions, including that of instructors within the force.
Meetu Bhargava, the sister of one of the detained former officers, had reached out to the government for assistance in bringing her brother back to India. In a post on a social media platform on June 8, she appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene. Her post, tagged to PM Modi and Union ministers Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh, read, “These ex-Navy officers are the pride of the nation, and again I request our Hon’ble Prime Minister with folded hands that it is high time that they all are brought back to India immediately without any further delay.”
The Indian government is now eagerly awaiting the response from Qatar and hopes for a favorable outcome that will lead to the release of the former Navy personnel.
