Hope alive for 17 Indians on death row

The members of an NGO Lawyers for the Human Rights International (LHAI) said their visit to the UAE on April 13 and 14 brought to the light that though lawyers had been provided to the youth,they were yet to get the copies of the judgement in order to know under what evidence they were handed the death sentence by the Sharjan court.

“They have been brutally tortured and asked to confess to the crime,though they did not,” Navkiran Singh of LHRI said in a news conference here on Tuesday. He along with other lawyer had gone to Sharjah to meet the Indian prisoners there.

He added that the prisoners told them that they were tortured by the UAE police and framed in the case.

He added ,”Even the Indian Consulate had shown a callous attitude by not keeping a tab on the fate Indian prisoners lodged in their jails. While they did not meet them during the five-month trial,there are in all about 50 Indians including these 17,lodged in the jail there.”

The 17 Indians,16 of them from Punjab,were given death sentence in March this year by a Sharjah court after they were booked in a murder case of a Pakistani youth,in January last year.

The parents of seven youths from Punjab were also present during the press conference,with hopes that their sons would get justice. “I am hopeful that the our government would provide full help and legal aid to our sons who are suffering there,” Balbir Singh,father of Taranjit Singh said.

“I had spent about Rs 70,000 to send my son Subhan to UAE in March 2008. But now,his life is at stake. We are hopeful that all of them will be freed soon,” said Pyare Lal. He added that he had spoken to a Pakistani youth who had worked with his son in UAE who told them that the parents of the deceased Pakistani youth also did not want that anyone should be hanged to death.

All the parents,however,said their sons never told them about the trial that was going on as they had made a pact among themselves. They came to know about the case only when they were sentenced to death,they added.