Jagtar Singh Johal arrested in Jalandhar

Who: Jagtar Singh Johal, known as Jaggi, a British Sikh from Dumbarton, Scotland. ThePrint says he ran websites on the 1984 anti-Sikh violence and translated Punjabi news into English. His lawyer is Jaspal Singh Manjhpur.

What: Johal travelled to India on 2 October 2017 to marry. On 4 November, REDRESS says, he was taken from his car in Jalandhar while shopping with his wife and a relative, hooded and put into an unmarked vehicle by men who showed no warrant. He was held incommunicado for ten days. USCIRF says more than a dozen plainclothes officers made the arrest.

Punjab Police said he was a link between hitmen and their handlers in the killings of Hindu right-wing leaders and others, and that he met a Khalistan Liberation Force chief in France in 2013 and carried cash for him. His lawyer says he was targeted for his work on 1984 and that nothing linking him to the murders was found when he was arrested. The charges include conspiracy, murder and offences under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Arms Act (USCIRF).

Johal says that from 4 to 9 November police gave him electric shocks, forced his limbs into painful positions, kept him from sleeping and made him sign blank papers, later used as a confession. Wikipedia, citing the BBC, says the Indian government denies any mistreatment. In November 2019 experts of the IRCT found reasonable grounds to believe he was tortured.

Where: Jalandhar, Punjab; he was later held in Tihar Jail, Delhi.

Why it mattered: On 19 November 2021 the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that he had been tortured, that his detention was arbitrary and discriminatory, and called for his release. In March 2025 a court at Moga acquitted him in the first case to reach a verdict, but REDRESS says eight more cases brought by the National Investigation Agency remain, resting on the same confession. In August 2022 his lawyers sued MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, alleging that by sharing intelligence they contributed to his detention and torture. REDRESS reports that in September 2026 he was granted bail in the remaining cases in which it had not already been granted, with conditions awaited, and that on 18 September 2026 he was still in detention.