Sir Keir Starmer has insisted he has not forgotten about a British citizen who has been locked up in an Indian jail for nearly eight years, as he visits the country on a trade mission.
The Prime Minister said the case of Jagtar Singh Johal, a Sikh activist from Dumbarton near Glasgow, was being raised on “every level”.
Sir Keir is due to meet with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on Thursday, with whom he previously raised Mr Johal’s case in July.
Thirty-eight-year-old Mr Johal is said to have passed on a message to Sir Keir in which he asked if there was “a way of speeding things up” in regards to the end of his eight-year detention.
His elder brother, Gurpreet Singh Johal, urged the Prime Minister to ensure “decisive steps” are being taken behind the scenes, and to give details about what raising Jagtar’s case means.
The detainee’s brother previously told the PA news agency that the recent high profile releases of Alaa Abd-El Fattah from an Egyptian jail, and Barbie and Peter Reynolds from Taliban detention, provided fuel for Sir Keir to press for Jagtar to be freed.
Mr Johal was bundled into the back of a unmarked car and arrested in November 2017 in India, just weeks after his wedding there.
The British Sikh has claimed to be subject to torture, and his imprisonment was recognised by a UN panel as arbitrary detention in 2022.
He was acquitted earlier this year in a case in which he was accused of financially supporting a terror group, but he still faces federal charges from the Indian authorities.
Asked if he had forgotten about Mr Johal’s case amid the trade mission to envoy, Sir Keir insisted he had not.
He told reporters: “No, not in the slightest. I think you will know that when I met with Prime Minister Modi in July it was raised.
“The Foreign Secretary has been meeting family members.
“Of course we always raise consular cases on every level.”
Mr Johal’s older brother meanwhile said that British consular staff had visited him in prison.
Gurpreet Singh Johal said: “As the Prime Minister arrived in India yesterday, Jagtar had a visit from UK consular staff. They asked him if he had a message for the PM and he simply said: ‘Is there a way of speeding things up?’”
In a warning to Sir Keir aimed at securing his brother’s freedom, he added: “Unless the Prime Minister acts, Jagtar will be an old man before he gets out of prison, trapped in a never-ending legal process designed to punish him for his human rights activism.
“So when I hear that Sir Keir Starmer has ‘raised’ the case, my question is: what does that mean? Because the previous government said that for seven years and did nothing.
“If it means more of the same, he will fail Jagtar like all the others. But I’m holding on to hope that it means decisive steps are being taken, behind the scenes, to bring my brother home.”
Dan Dolan, deputy director of Reprieve, a legal campaign group supporting Mr Johal’s family, said: “One of the essential functions of a government is to protect its citizens, and whether publicly or privately, the Prime Minister needs to make clear to India that it is unacceptable to keep a British citizen locked up for years when there’s no credible evidence that he committed a crime.
“Our message to the PM is that there must be a way to get this done, because the current situation can’t be allowed to continue.
“Jagtar has already been unjustly imprisoned for the first eight years of his married life, under threat of the death penalty – an appalling injustice that is tearing a British family apart.
“Keir Starmer can bring it to an end by bringing Jagtar home.”
