Jalandhar, April 2
Arvinder Singh cannot forget the dreadful night in January last year when the Sharjah Police swooped down on him and 49 other Indian youths while they were sleeping. They were taken into custody and brutally tortured without saying what wrong they had committed.

Singh (21) was lucky. He was among the 33 men who were released later. Seventeen others, including his cousin Sukhjinder Singh, have now been sentenced to death for the murder of a Pakistani.

“I was in Sharjah for a year and a half. My cousin and I worked as labourers. That night, at around 2.30 am, the police arrested us. We weren’t told why and even worse, were asked to be silent. Later, we learnt that a case was registered against us. I was imprisoned for three months and then released,” Arvinder said. As many as 50 Indian youths were arrested while they were sleeping in their accommodation.

“All were brutally tortured. We were given lashes and electric current and the 17 youths who broke down due to intensive torture were finally booked in the case while the rest of the 33 were released and sent back to India,” Arvinder said. He said that statements of the released boys should also be recorded to save the convicted youths through an appeal in the higher court in Sharjah.

Appealing to the Centre to immediately intervene to rescue the 17 “innocent” youths, Arvinder said, “We would wait for a response today, otherwise we will be forced to organise a protest march in front of the Prime Minister’s House in New Delhi.” He said that the 33 released youths would also join the planned protest.

Ranjit Kaur, who came to know about her husband Dharam Pal’s conviction through a newspaper, said that he had gone to Dubai to earn his livelihood and could never harm anybody.

An inconsolable Ranjit Kaur, mother of two young children and resident of Chowk Tehal Singh of Ferozepur district, said Pal went to Dubai about two years back to work as a labourer. The money for sending him was arranged by selling the lone trolley owned by the family, she said. “It is big shock to the family,” Ranjit Kaur said.

Relatives of Kuldeep Singh, another Indian on death row, alleged that the trial was a farce. Ravinder Singh’s family too claims that he has been framed and that the trial was “illegal”.

Most of the 17 youths facing death sentence are in their 20s and all of them come from poor families in rural Punjab. The families exhausted their savings to send their breadwinners to the Middle East, counting on the money they would have sent home. — PTI