Among undertrials, after Bangladesh, most of prisoners are from Nigeria, Nepal and Pakistan
As many as 871 foreign nationals are languishing in prisons across India for want of confirmation of their nationality. Only 222 out of the 3,908 foreign nationals in jail have received consular access.
A non-government organisation Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) in its report Strangers to Justice released this week revealed that there are 3,908 foreign nationals in prisons across India, of these 1,674 are undertrials and 1,377 are convicts. Among undertrials, after Bangladesh, most of prisoners are from Nigeria, Nepal and Pakistan.
As per the report, among these 1,657 under trial prisoners, 38.5 per cent that is 638 were charged under Foreigners act/ Foreigners Registration Act or Passport Act alone, whereas those charged under other penal laws such as Indian Penal Code, The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 are 444, and those charged with both offences were 361.
The data was gleaned from 22 states and four Union Territories through the RTI Act, and requests to heads of all 36 state prison departments, CHRI claims.
As per the data, out of total 3,908 foreign nationals 1,647 are undertrials, 1,377 are convicts while an astonishing 871 are reported to be awaiting repatriation that is those foreign nationals who have completed their terms of sentence, yet remain in prison pending the repatriation process.
Another glaring fact is that 522 of these prisoners are categorised as 'persons whose nationality is not provided', essentially meaning that they do not belong to any country. The remaining others belong to 58 countries.
Among these only 83 of the 1,657 undertrials had ever received consular access, which amounts to a mere 5 per cent. The figure states that there are 109 prisoners from Myanmar, 110 from Nepal, 243 from Nigeria, 116 from Pakistan, 16 from Afghanistan and 2,542 from Bangladesh.
The maximum numbers are lodged in Assam with 492 then in Maharashtra with 434, in Jammu and Kashmir with 110, then in Delhi with 93 and thereafter Tripura with 56 foreign national prisoners.
The report also highlights that there are presently no special provisions or comprehensive guidelines governing detention of or providing for special facilities for foreign national prisoners. "Even the recently framed Model Prison Manual 2016 does not contain a dedicated chapter on treatment of foreign national prisoners or set out a separate regime for them," the report stated.
Further the report stated that language barriers are often responsible for foreign national prisoners'' sense of isolation and also they generally have no means to contact their families apart from relying on their embassies, which may or may not be responsive.
Also similar to the restrictions on police, the prison departments are also unable to communicate directly with embassies without nod from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and state home departments.
The repatriation process is tedious with a number of sub-processes: nationality verification, issuance of emergency travel certificate, securing funds for travel, the assignment of escorts for transfer, approval from airlines (in case of travel by air) or approval by border security forces (in case of travel by road), among others.
The report suggests that Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and MEA should revise their guidelines prohibiting direct contact of police officers with the embassies. "Instead, police officers should be permitted to send email intimations in a standard format whenever a foreign national is arrested anywhere in the country," the report stated.
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