Scotland – The National, Dec. 11, 2025
THE life of a Scot who has been arbitrarily detained in India for more than eight years is “at risk”, a group of senior parliamentarians have warned the Foreign Secretary.
In a letter to Yvette Cooper, Scottish barrister and peer Helena Kennedy, SNP MP Brendan O’Hara, and former Tory chair of the Foreign Affairs select committee Alicia Kearns all called for the UK Government to “urgently intercede” to protect Jagtar Singh Johal.
The Dumbarton man was lifted off the street by Indian authorities while on his honeymoon in 2017 and has since been held on trumped-up charges without conviction because of his work documenting human rights violations and persecution of Sikhs in India.
In 2022, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) said that he had been “deprived of his liberty on discriminatory grounds, owing to his status as a human rights defender”.
Last month, Johal was moved to India’s notorious Tihar jail, a prison found to be so dangerous that the UK has previously blocked people from being extradited and held there.
Now, in the letter to Cooper, the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on hostage affairs has said: “Jagtar Singh Johal, arbitrarily detained in India since 2017, has been moved to Tihar Prison, putting his life at risk.
