NEW DELHI: A Qatar court has officially accepted the appeal of eight former Indian Navy personnel who were sentenced to death for their alleged involvement in a murder case. The court is expected to hold the next hearing soon, as it reviews the appeal document submitted by the families of the accused, with the support of the Indian government.
The eight ex-Navy men, who have been apprehended, include Commander Purnendu Tiwari, Commander Sugunakar Pakala, Commander Amit Nagpal, Commander Sanjeev Gupta, Captain Navtej Singh Gill, Captain Birendra Kumar Verma, Captain Saurabh Vasisht, and Sailor Ragesh Gopakumar.
They were working as security guards for a private company in Qatar, and were convicted by the Court of First Instance on October 26, for the murder of a Qatari national in 2019. The court also imposed a fine of 3 million Qatari riyals (about Rs 6 crore) on them. The families of the accused, who have maintained their innocence, filed an appeal against the verdict on November 16, and the court accepted it a few days later.
The appeal document, which was prepared by a team of lawyers from India and Qatar, challenges the evidence and the procedure followed by the lower court and seeks a fair and impartial trial for the accused. The document also cites the testimonies of several witnesses and experts, who have contradicted the prosecution’s claims and raised doubts about the authenticity of the forensic reports.
For the unversed, Meetu Bhargava, the sibling of one of the ex-officers in custody, had reached out to the government seeking assistance in repatriating her brother. On June 8, she made an appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a post on X, urging his intervention.
“These Ex-Navy officers are the pride of the nation & again I request our Hon’ble Prime Minister with folded hands that it is high time that they all be brought back to India immediately without any further delay,” read her post, tagged to PM Modi and Union Ministers Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh.
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