 Hello, welcome everyone to another capsule on international relations for the Shankar Aiyais Academy. We have had a gap for a few days for various reasons. I am sorry about that. Today we are planning to talk about a very unfortunate incident in Qatar which led to that sentence of five, eight Indian nationalists for Spanish charges. This is a rather exceptional because Indian community generally in the Gulf is very peaceful and very obeyed discipline and in many ways they are preferred to many other nationalities because of that sincerity and devotion of work of our people. And we have very good relations with Qatar and Qatar though it's a small country, it's a very important country. It is probably one of the richest countries in the world that can be done. And also it has the very large reserves of gas and petrol and also they have a very good open relationship with the rest of the world. Sometimes of course they are suspected of supporting some elements which are shall we say extremists in certain respects. And therefore there have been problems at one time last year or year before last UAE and the terrain. I think some countries are in a relationship with Qatar. That's very strange because they are all members of the GCC and there was some difference of opinion between them but it was a very clear result and they all took it very easy and even though it was a serious act on the part of cutting off a GCC member it was soon resolved and even during the kind of boycott of Qatar gas kept flowing into the other countries and they had good relationship and so on. So they still continued to be a very strong partner of the GCC in spite of that problem. But the timing is somewhat strange of this time because of all of West Asia is some turbulence and at that time this to happen to eight Indians is very unfortunate. It's not only that they are Indian Nationals, they are also former naval officers, seven of them commissioned officers and one non-commissioned officer. They were actually working for an Oman company which had deployed them in Qatar because Qatar was purchasing some submarines, midget submarines as they are called from Italy and the responsibility of these eight Indians was to induct these submarines into the Qatar Navy and naturally these people had experience in India and they were selected for that though they were not they are not in the service now, they were all in the service and later either died or took premature retirement and joined this company. So they are very trusted and able and efficient people. So but one does not know what happened, last year they were all arrested and charged with a spare notch for another country that another country supposedly is rare and so at this time when the West Asia is on fire as it were this is very sensitive. That's also the reason why India is concerned about it at this time whether it should lead to any other but their priority of course first and foremost is to get this death sentence removed because they have already said they are not guilty and it has to be proved in court but after a year of trial such a lower court sentenced them to death which came as a big shock to everyone and they are of course said that they are innocent of it. So several ways in which we want to deal with it as far as Government of India is concerned our highest priority is to get them back not only you know remove the death sentence but also not keep them in jail but let them come and join their families. This is India's highest priority but then there are other complications here first of all the legal issue. Legally they are entitled to go to a higher court, a court of appeal and it can go several levels and finally it may reach the Emir himself who will have to take a decision so that is the process and that's where it takes some time and very often apparently this pardon is given by the Emir during the Eid period so the next Eid period will come only after about six months or so so at least for six months they will be in jail and at that time they are free to make a representation or file an appeal in a higher court and as far as I understand Government of India is helping them and the embassy supporting them to file this case at the high court and that is the first and foremost important step but nobody can say what the outcome of that will be and where it will go to even higher positions and finally go to the Emir we do not know so there's also lots of uncertainty which of course is concerned particularly the families and also for the Government of India itself. So this is a bad situation particularly at this time and everybody is very concerned about the war between Israel and Hamas. India itself has taken a we have always been supportive of Palestine and but India has not approved the terrorist attack that Hamas staged and therefore India was critical of Hamas but of course we continue to support Palestinians and the Palestinian state so there is no difficulty there but since this is a sensitive time it would be of great interest for people United States is fully supportive of Israel they're not even willing to call for a ceasefire and all these problems are going on and then we have to handle this sensitive situation but one thing that we can do is to support them to take it up in the high court but there are other ways also the other way is to ask them to seek pardon from the head of state but that will be contradictory because they have already said that they have not committed this crime so if you have not committed the crime then how do you ask for pardon and that will be contradictory so it may happen that they may have to make a confession if you have to make a pardon but that will be contradicted to the position that they have taken so far and therefore that is not an easy easy path so what could happen is a high-level contact between the government of India and the government of Qatar and the prime minister has visited Qatar and the Emir has also been to India we have very good relationship and in the context of that it may be possible that our prime minister make it our appeal to the Emir and considering the situation and the sensitivity and the need for continuing relationship and also there are about eight lakhs of Indians in Qatar they are all doing very well and that should not also be disturbed so considering all this that may be the solution for the prime minister to talk to the Emir and seek his help to get these people released another option that India has is to go to the International Court of Justice we did this in the case of Mr Yadav who was an Indian national who was arrested in Balochistan and brought to Pakistan and sentenced to death there of course the case did not any sympathetic attention to the government of Pakistan Pakistan was determined to hang him and they did not give consular access to our people and therefore that was also a complaint that we had that he was not well treated etc but in this case it's a friendly country like Pakistan and therefore we do not expect this kind of treatment from them and therefore it will not be hopefully necessary for us to go to the ICJ of course ICJ can take any any decision court of law has its own considerations and therefore we do not know how what the result will come but that option is there but I have a feeling that we will not opt for that because we would rather go let them go through the different levels of legislation to offer legal legal action and prove their innocence and then come back and the second would be the option to appeal to the panel so these are the kind of options that are there but the concern is that they are in jail the families are in touch with the government some of them are allowed to go to Qatar also so that way they have been very very gracious and kind embassy itself had access to them they know that they are well being well treated and so normally since the Indian community has been so good but in a situation where there are so many people in a society which is somewhat rigid on these matters sometimes it happens this has happened before also some some cases we succeed maybe odd odd cases where do not we succeed also like in Yemen because Yemen cannot be compared to Qatar because they are in our situation and the lady was against to death and till today there is no solution even though every effort has been made to solve that problem but of course in her case she had confessed to the killing and there's also a difference and Yemen is an indifferent state of sort of war various factions trying for leadership etc so it will not go to that that situation we hope but it's indeed an issue at this time and particularly because of the the conflict and way too many people who may not get much this this may not get much traction or attraction for the leadership because there are much many more issues are there in the war situation and India's position also has shifted slightly away from the Palestinians and this may also be a sensitive matter so on the whole this should not have happened we do not know how it happened we do not know what misunderstanding took place what they were doing was a very legitimate action because they were experienced people in submarines and maybe they were recruited with the support and advice of the government of India it's possible we don't know whether they went individually and got this job or whether there were any discussions between the government to governments in taking them so in that situation if there were guilty of espionage for Israel as they consider that is likely the case then it is complicated but India is doing everything possible to convey the feelings to the government of Qatar and also keep the family comfortable and assuring them that we do everything everything possible in order to get them released so this is a situation but I thought I would it would be important for you to remember these remember these facts in case this happens to be an issue that might come up in your example because it is a an unusual situation and therefore might be useful for you to have the details so hopefully they are not guilty and therefore they will probably be released and send back to India very soon let us hope and pray that this happens thank you very much do you have any questions that's a legal legal issue because if you ask for pardon you have to say that you committed a mistake or whatever so at the moment since they have said they have not done it so it may be contradict that's what I mean but I know that I'm not a legal expert I don't know how it will be treated but it may be possible that such a pardon may not be relevant in a situation where they have said that they are not they are not committed that is a complication yes there have been there have been cases not identical and not with Qatar other the one that in the MNI mentioned there have been several cases of that sentence being given to Indians in different circumstances and in some countries there is this way out is to pay blood money to the relatives if a person is killed you can negotiate outside the court you can engage yourself with the family and fix an amount of money that will be paid to the family and we cannot really compare the two situations but when you have a large community like that you know once in a while such things happen since you know millions of Indians in the Gulf and so often on some of these things happen but nothing has been very very very serious has all been sold one way or the other so the answer is yes we have had cases like this but it's all been sold and there's not been any very serious this except for the Yemen case I don't know any case where the danger of that sentence still is there these were submarine uh working with the officers naval officers of India working on submarines in Qatar as part of a company in Oman and they were suddenly arrested last year for having passed on the secrets of his work to a third country which is suspected to be Israel and proceedings went on for several months and then suddenly we were told that they're all found guilty and sentenced to death and that became very serious and that will be very unfortunate if that happens and we hope that will not happen and one good thing is that in the last 20 years Qatar has not killed anybody many were sentenced to death even their own people but they're all pardoned and let off by the image so in the last 20 years they have not executed the death sentence that's also very good precedent so hopefully the same thing will happen in their case also but we have to go through the process first is for them to appeal to the high court second is for the government of India to appeal to them third would be for our government at the highest level to take it up and fourth will be to go to the international court of justice so by one way or the other hopefully we'll be released they will be released we don't know at least I don't know these people were working in that company and whether there were others we don't know maybe local people may have also been arrested but we will not know that they will not tell us since they are Indian nationals we have been told nothing else very bad Qatar is very strongly supportive of Palestine and Hamas of course was supported somewhere or the other by Qatar so that is why I mentioned earlier that within the GCC itself there are questions about Qatar's favoring Palestinian extremists so the relationship with Israel can be quite bad that's a hypothetical question we are hoping that this will not happen and as I said since they have not executed death sentences in the last 20 years they may not make an exception this case or so we don't know and it's the company is in Oman and they were depicted there so they might all be involved they might all be trying to get them released these extradition proceedings that can be initiated by India applicable in this case extradition is if there is a case locally that has to be resolved first before they are extradited so and there might be an extradition agreement between India and Qatar but that is a later process if their internal legal process are exhausted then only we could try for extradition and say that we will try them in India and give them their appropriate punishment so that may be a way but that's a later process in fact any national is arrested anywhere in the world they are what their first thing they have to do is to inform the embassy concerned but some people that they hold it back for some time that they really find out whether they are guilty or not but in this particular case they were very prompt in informing the embassy and also giving them access to go and see them and to see that they were not being tortured or they are not being badly defeated so women of India is quite satisfied that they are well treated and initially they were kept in individual isolation from each other but later they even put them all together so that they can talk to each other and discuss issues and so on so it looks as though they have done it very appropriately and properly so this question as to whether it is true that the government has one particular position and many people in India probably support some people that support Hamas and Palestine more strongly this is nothing unusual everybody does not approve of our relationship with the United States for example they have different views or with Russia or how we handle the Ukraine crisis so ours is a free country democratic country everybody does not need to take the line of the government and so it's possible that there are these different views and the case of Palestine this is becoming evident even on a communal basis Muslim League has a different position BJP has a different position so on so that we are seeing around us but that is not relevant to this case as far as their freedom is concerned so in that we are all one all of us would want them to be released and send back to India that is our purpose on that I don't think there is any difference okay people may have a difference opinion about India's position on Israel or India's lack of full support to Palestine and you know that many countries in the Gulf are normalizing relations with Israel and so some people think that Hamas did this because if they did not do this now Palestine will disappear there will be nobody to support them and a new world order will come and the Palestinians will be neglected so people say that was the reason for them to do it now because they thought so many things were happening in any countries including Saudi Arabia is you know discussing and thinking of a tripartite agreement of Israel Saudi Arabia and the U.S. which the Palestinians will consider very much against their interests but there's another subject we'll talk about Palestine and Israel in another class so today we are focusing on that but these are relevant issues which you have to think about how do I do that did any daily news available in their country like many people were arrested regarding this issue in their country among them or few Indians like this I'm not aware of any situation like that but our concern is basically because they are Indian nationals they may have different ways of dealing with their own people but I have not heard of such a see odd cases we have heard about in the but eight people and that too former Indian naval officers that's unprecedented no any human life is very precious but external officers I keep saying because they are responsible people they normally would not do such things so it is possible that they may help in their process Israeli help of course is out of the question this is not the time for that we have a good relationship so why should we go out to anybody else we can deal with them directly okay with that we can conclude thank you very much