A writ petition has been filed in the Kerala High Court by a woman from Thiruvananthapuram seeking a directive to the Union government to provide her necessary legal, diplomatic, and political support for bringing back her son who has been jailed in United Arab Emirates (UAE) on the alleged charges of spying for the Indian government.
In her petition, Shahubanath Beevi from Thiruvananthapuram said that her son Shihani Meera Sahib Jamal Muhammed has been in Abu Dhabi Central Prison, UAE, since his arrest in 2015 for the alleged offence of spying for the Indian government. Her son was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment because of the failure of the Indian authorities to provide him effective legal support. The verdict of the UAE federal appeal court had been confirmed by the Federal Supreme Court on April 16, 2017.
Her petition said that the UAE court orders had specifically mentioned the particulars of Indian Embassy officials such as Anup Kumar Shrivastava, Consular Officer, Anrup Mukherjee, Military Attache, and Arun Jain, First Secretary, who had collected information from the petitioner’s son through emails and SMS, she alleged.
‘No support given’
It was the bounden duty of the Indian government to save its innocent citizen from the clutches of a “blind and merciless” justice system by whatever means available. In fact, neither the Government of India nor its various organs at the Embassy of India in Abu Dhabi had provided any help to the petitioner’s son.
She pointed out that the media report indicated that several Indians were languishing in various UAE jails on charges of spying for the Indian intelligence agencies. The Indian intelligence agencies under the cover of Embassy officials enticed poor Indians employed in sensitive UAE government institutions to spying to get various information about the institutions. The Indian agents usually escape claiming diplomatic immunity. These intelligence agencies did not provide any support to the poor people.
Tortured
The petition alleged that her son was subjected to third-degree tortures by putting him in cellular burrows for months in extremely cold temperatures and fasting stun belts around the waist which delivered high voltage shocks. His wife, brothers, and other relatives working in the UAE had tried to meet him, but to no avail.
The petition is likely to come up before the court on July 6.
