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. Read the full story here.