Lawyers For Human Rights International: 'Indians on UAE death row were framed'

A human rights group from India which visited Sharjah jail in UAE to meet 17 prisoners facing death sentences on charges of killing a Pakistani youth said the accused on death row were tortured, framed and made victims of gross miscarriage of justice.

Lawyers For Human Rights International (LFHRI), an organisation of lawyers having its base in Punjab in India, being part of an international movement against Death Penalty, visited Sharjah jail in UAE to meet the 17 prisoners.

2 member team comprising of Navkiran Singh, a human rights lawyer and activist from Punjab practising in the High Court at Chandigarh and who is the General Secretary of LFHRI along with another lawyer Gagan Aggarwal, visited Dubai and Sharjah on 13th and 14th of April and met the lawyers who have been hired to defend these 17 Indians by the Indian Consulate of UAE.

They also visited Sharjah jail and met all the prisoners and found a gross miscarriage of justice.

The meeting was conducted for almost 2 hours, with these 17 young boys who are all aged between 21-25 years and it revealed a very sorry state of affairs. The apathy of the prisoners revealed a total miscarriage of justice, highhandedness and religious biasness of the CID branch of Police of Sharjah and a total callous attitude of the Indian consulate towards the Indian citizens who are languishing in jails of UAE, the group said in its fact finding report.

LFHRI said the prisoners reported that none of them was arrested from the spot and on their arrest they were brutally tortured by giving beatings to them for continuous 9 days by police men of CID branch.

"They were beaten with Golf clubs and plastic pipes and were also given electric shocks. They were made to stand on one foot and not allowed to sleep and asked to make confessions to the crime, which as per their version they never committed," Navkiran Singh, who is LFHRI general secretary, told IBNS.

"However in spite of brutal torture, they never confessed. Some of these prisoners also showed their injuries received by them in the police interrogation and also disclosed that the said injuries are contained in their medical reports," said Singh, who visited the prisoners in the jail.

The right group said the accused disclosed that they are not allowed access to their religious prayer books and have been forced to keep away from their articles of faith.

"2 of the accused want to grow hair to be true Sikhs, however are not being permitted to do so. In the library of the jail there are no books in Punjabi language literature or of Sikh religion, which can be read by the inmates," LFHRI said.

The victims also alleged callous attitude of the Indian Consulate as officials from the consulate hardly visited them in the jails.

The group said one of the prisoners told them that out of their 9 months incarceration in the jail, only now has the consulate officials started visiting some of them, due to highlighting of these 17 accused case of death penalty.

LFHRI has demanded immediate action by the Indian Consulate to protect the human rights of the prisoners.

Source: India Blooms News Service, April 21, 2010

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