Navy Veterans jailed in Qatar since 2022 return home

Indian Navy veterans return back to India after they have been jailed in Qatar since 2022. In October, 2023 the Navy veterans were sentenced to capital punishment on the alleged charges of spying. There were total eight veterans out of which seven has returned and one is undergoing some paperwork for his return.

The important move came some weeks after PM Narendra Modi met Qatar’s Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani on the occasion of the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) summit in Dubai.

Formerly, the veterans were working in a private firm named Dahra Global Company. It provides training and other services to Qatar’s armed forces and security agencies.

One of the veterans said, “We, as well as our anxious family members back home, had been waiting for this day for a long time. It all worked out because of PM Modi and his personal intervention in the matter. He took up our case with the highest levels of the Qatari government and eventually secured our release. I don’t have enough words to express my gratitude to him and the Emir of Qatar.”

Another released former naval officer told ANI, “Without the intervention of PM Modi, we would not have walked free. We wouldn’t be standing before you today had it not been for his untiring efforts and interventions at the highest levels to get us freedom.”