Seven-year 'nightmare' of Scottish activist held in an Indian jail

It's more than seven years since Jagtar Singh Johal was snatched from the bustling streets of Jalandhar in northern India.

The young Sikh activist, from Dumbarton in the west of Scotland, had been visiting the state of Punjab to celebrate his wedding.

But as he walked through the busy streets and crowded markets on 4 November 2017, he was surrounded by officers from the local police force.

His family say he was grabbed, a hood was placed over his head and he was forced into a vehicle in broad daylight.

He was taken into custody – where he has remained ever since.

Jagtar has not been convicted of any crimes, and was this week acquitted in the first of nine cases against him.

The Indian government says that he's a dangerous terrorist who helped plan the killings of seven people.

But his family says he's an innocent man who has been tortured by his jailers, and there are growing calls for the 38-year-old to be released and allowed to return home after the "seven-year nightmare".

The charges he faces range from membership of a terrorist gang to conspiracy to murder, but in each of the cases his alleged activity is the same.

The prosecution says Jagtar was documenting the violence against Sikhs in the Punjab region during the bloodshed of the mid-1980s through his website, but that his activism went further.

It says that through his work on the website he made links with figures intent on destabilising India through violence.

It says that in 2013 Jagtar travelled to Paris and handed over about £3,000 to members of the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF), an armed organisation which has carried out violent attacks in pursuit of a putative Sikh homeland called Khalistan.

It says this money was used to purchase weapons which were then used in acts of terrorism in the Punjab, namely the targeted killings of seven Hindu and other religious and political leaders, and the attempted murder of another during a particularly volatile period in the region across 2016 and 2017.

That the violence took place is not in dispute.

What is less clear is the role that this man from Dumbarton, with no criminal history, may have played in it.

Jagtar's brother Gurpreet originally thought his brother had been abducted, before learning that he was in the custody of the Punjab Police.

In the following days, Gurpreet learned that Jagtar was accused of being an active member of a terror cell - and that he claimed he had been tortured in his cell.

A handwritten note passed from Jagtar to his defence lawyer detailed how he'd been beaten and subjected to electric shocks, and how officers entered his cell with a petrol container and threatened to burn him alive, before coercing him to sign a blank piece of paper.

Gurpreet's concern for his brother only grew when, in December 2017, a video appeared showing Jagtar in a police cell, allegedly confessing to his role in a series of killings in the Punjab region.

Gurpreet began a campaign to free his brother, telling politicians and the media that Jagtar was a peaceful activist who had been falsely implicated.

For seven years Jagtar has waited for progress to be made in the various cases against him and his eight co-accused.

Eight of the cases have been brought by the Indian government's counter-terror branch, the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

There have been hundreds of hearings, beset by procedural delays, as each trial grinds its way through the courts in Delhi.

Jagtar's representatives from the legal charity Reprieve have criticised the process as unfair and say no "credible" evidence has been presented against Jagtar.

They say his confession is coerced, obtained through torture and therefore inadmissible as evidence.

But now the ninth case, in the District Court of Moga, Punjab, has finally provided some clarity in this murky and intriguing story.

After seven years, we finally received a verdict.

Judge Harjeet Singh found that the prosecution "has failed to collect cogent and convincing evidence… regarding participation of the accused in unlawful activities or otherwise".

He said it had also "failed to lead any evidence that the accused were members of [a] terrorist organization".

And he said: "The prosecution has miserably failed to prove the commission of the [conspiracy] offences by all the accused.

"Thus, all the accused are liable to be acquitted."

All the charges of conspiracy, raising funds for a terrorist gang, and membership of a terrorist gang were rejected.

Jagtar was acquitted of all the charges against him in this case.

Three of his co-accused were found guilty of gun possession and given two-year sentences. They have already spent seven years in jail.

But why did it take years to reach this point – and what does the acquittal mean for the other cases against Jagtar, who is still being held in a maximum security prison in Delhi?

To understand this we need to look at the evidence which did make it into court.

DSP Balwinder Singh was one of the officers who arrested Jagtar in November 2017.

The judgement tells us that in his evidence DSP Singh "admitted that no incriminating article/thing/document [was] recovered from Jagtar Singh Johal in this case, during his investigation and no documentary evidence was produced or in the file regarding links of other accused with Jagtar Singh Johal during his investigation".

On the central allegation that Jagtar travelled to Paris to hand over money to members of the KLF, the judgement says that DSP Singh could not tell the date, month and year of that visit.

"He admitted that during his investigation, no material in the shape of letter heads or logo of KLF or any other banned organization… was recovered from the accused," said the judge.

"This causes a serious dent in the case of the prosecution."

The other arresting officer's evidence was that "nothing incriminating" was recovered from Jagtar at the time of his arrest or afterwards.

Perhaps the most curious testimony came from witness Kanwaljit Singh, a property dealer who gave a police statement saying that he was visited by Jagtar and another accused in the spring of 2017.

He said Jagtar told him that he had collected funds to carry out attacks on "hardline Hindu leaders" in the Punjab.

But, according to the judge, "careful scrutiny of the statements shows that no reliance can be placed on" his evidence.

At Jagtar's trial, Kanwaljit Singh admitted that he himself had previously been active in an armed Sikh group, had served time in jail and, most importantly, that he had never met Jagtar or the other man who he had put in the frame with his police statement.

He said he had approached the police after reading about Jagtar in a newspaper following his arrest.

This is just one witness in a case which Jagtar's legal representatives from Reprieve say is characterised by unreliable, even tainted, testimony.

They point to the statement given by a different man which they say is "almost identical, word for word" to the statement given by Kanwaljit Singh.

The prosecution failed to produce this man in court and now say he is dead, so he cannot speak to his statement.

Reprieve alleges that these men are "stock witnesses" - people improperly influenced or coerced by the authorities into giving evidence in a case.

The organisation's caseworkers also highlighted the confession statement of Harmeet Singh Mintoo, the former KLF leader whom Jagtar allegedly met in Paris.

Mintoo retracted this statement and died in prison before he could finish challenging it through the courts.

Reprieve says other witnesses in the case have similarly retracted the statements they gave to police when appearing to give evidence at trial, with some even testifying their statements had been falsified.

The prosecution's case included an elaborate cast of characters, meetings and plots from the UK, across Europe and into Pakistan and India, culminating in the grisly murders of seven people.

In this one case at least, no evidence has been found for any of it.

Reprieve's interim deputy executive director, Dan Dolan, says the case against Jagtar was "absurdly weak from the start".

"Seven years of his life have been wasted, with proceedings dragging out, when it was plain all along that there was never any solid evidence," he told the BBC.

"The process is the punishment – the cases are no more than a thin excuse to keep him in jail."

The remaining cases against Jagtar are scheduled to be heard in Delhi, in a different court. The potential punishments are much more severe, including the death penalty, in the event of conviction.

They are brought by the NIA under India's Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, which exists to clamp down on any activity which might "threaten the unity, integrity, security or sovereignty of India, or to strike terror in people or any section of people of India".

Its critics say it is a draconian law which can label people as terrorists without due process, and which is disproportionately used against minorities in the country.

There is also likely to be evidence from "protected witnesses" in the NIA's cases, whose full identities are not known. Reprieve says their statements have not provided any more evidence beyond what was heard in the Moga case where Jagtar was acquitted.

Nevertheless, Reprieve argues that because the allegations against Jagtar in every case are "all-but identical", the Moga verdict should mean his acquittal in all the others too.

Dan Dolan says it's now over to the UK government to secure Jagtar's release.

Meanwhile, in an apparent strengthening of its position, a UK government minister said in parliament this week that Jagtar's release "needs to happen urgently".

Gurpreet, who has limited contact with his brother over video calls, continues to live in hope.

"To be vindicated in court is a great feeling," he said.

"Jagtar's smile and spark are back. He spoke to our dad for only the third time in seven years yesterday and they were in high spirits thanks to the acquittal.

"Ministers are saying all the right things but what counts is action. This judgement can be the beginning of the end of our family's seven-year nightmare, if the government acts now."

This week a spokesperson for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) welcomed the progress in the case.

"The UK government remains committed to working for faster progress on Jagtar's case, and the FCDO continue to work to support Mr Johal and his family," it said.

The Indian government has not responded to a request for comment on the verdict in the Moga case, but has previously said that due process has been followed in the case.

The Indian authorities have also previously denied the allegations of torture.