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Ex-Indian Navy officer stuck in Qatar even after death sentence commuted. MEA details why
Commander Tiwari was among eight former Indian Navy personnel arrested by Qatari authorities in 2022 on espionage charges.
The external affairs ministry said on Friday that a former Indian Navy official, whose death sentence was commuted by a Qatari court in 2023, has been unable to return home because he was detained and sentenced in a separate case.
The Indian side is in touch with Commander (retired) Purnendu Tiwari, his family and his lawyers in connection with the case against him in Qatar, external affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told a weekly media briefing without going into details about the new charges against the navy veteran.
Tiwari was among eight former Indian Navy personnel arrested by Qatari authorities in 2022 on espionage charges. The men, including highly decorated officers, were sentenced to death in 2023 but this was subsequently commuted by a Qatari court.
The eight men were released on the orders of the Qatari Amir in February 2024, and this was followed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Doha. Seven of the eight men returned to India, while Tiwari remained in Qatar.
“The eighth naval veteran, he has a particular case against him. He was detained in that [case]. It has nothing to do with the earlier case,” Jaiswal said.
“The court there has given a ruling under which he has been given a sentence. We are in touch with him, with his family and his lawyers. So, that is where this particular issue is.”
The episode had strained India-Qatar ties for several months before the two sides were able to work out a resolution to the case related to charges of alleged involvement in spying. People familiar with the matter said Tiwari was accused of financial irregularities related to his former employer, a subsidiary of Oman-based Dahra Engineering & Security Services that provided training and other services to Qatar’s armed forces.
Tiwary suffering from PTSD in jail
Jaiswal responded to a question on Tiwari’s case hours after his sister, Meetu Bhargava, contended in a social media post that the external affairs ministry and the government had failed to secure his return to the country. Bhargava said Tiwari was left behind while his seven colleagues were brought back to India in February 2024.
“Commander Tiwary has endured nearly four years of extreme hardship in Doha and has now been languishing in jail for almost five months. He is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) along with other serious medical conditions. His health is deteriorating rapidly,” she said.
“What is even more alarming is that the cases against him were stitched out of the very same case for which he had already been pardoned by [the Qatari Amir], despite having no role in the company’s financial matters,” she added.
