Rishi Sunak urged to raise India detention of British man
BBC By Damian Grammaticas
Political correspondent
A cross-party group of MPs are calling on Rishi Sunak to intervene in the case of a British man who is facing the death penalty in India.
More than 70 MPs signed a letter urging the PM to call on Narendra Modhi to "immediately release" campaigner Jagtar Singh Johal, when he travels to Delhi for the G20 leaders' summit.
They say Mr Johal has been "arbitrarily detained" for over five years.
The PM's spokesperson would not confirm or deny if the case would be raised.
Mr Johal, who is now 36, comes from Dumbarton in Scotland. He was a blogger and campaigner for Sikh human rights, which are said to have brought him to the attention of the Indian authorities.
He travelled to India in October 2017 to get married. The campaign group Reprieve says that while he was out shopping with his wife, he was hooded, bundled into a car by men in plainclothes, "severely tortured", and made to sign blank pieces of paper.
- UK accused of tip-off that led to Brit's torture
- Scot held in India faces murder conspiracy charge
- Brit 'tortured to sign blank confession' in India
Tory MP David Davis told the BBC that "the first duty of a state should be to prevent a citizen getting harmed", and that if a citizen had been harmed and subjected to injustice, "the government should be raising the most serious protests".
