1 May 2025, 18:02

By Andrew Purcell

It has now been 2,736 days since Jagtar Singh Johal was snatched off the street on his honeymoon in India, in front of his wife, and bundled into an unmarked van.

Or to put it another way, more than seven years since the torture of this young British citizen began, first with electricity and threats to burn him alive, and ever since with a sham legal process, designed to keep him imprisoned indefinitely for the ‘crime’ of standing up for human rights.

At the family home in Dumbarton, just outside Glasgow, his brother Gurpreet keeps a tally of how long it’s been, and not a single day passes without Gurpreet fighting to bring Jagtar home. If only we could say the same of the UK Government.

Four Conservative Prime Ministers and six Conservative Foreign Secretaries failed Jagtar, claiming airily to have “raised” his case with the Indian authorities, without making any progress or even committing to trying to bring him home.

In opposition, both Sir Keir Starmer and David Lammy said that Jagtar is arbitrarily detained, and that the government should seek his release. Now they’re the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary… well, we’ll see. The moment of truth has arrived. It has never been clearer that only the UK Government can bring........

© LBC