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Mahesh

27/10/23 06:27 AM IST

Qatar court sentences 8 ex-Indian Navy officers to death

In News
  • Eight former Indian Navy personnel, arrested by Qatari authorities in August last year, have been sentenced to death.
Who are these Indians?
  • The eight former Navy personnel — Captain Navtej Singh Gill, Captain Saurabh Vasisht, Commander Purnendu Tiwari, Captain Birendra Kumar Verma, Commander Sugunakar Pakala, Commander Sanjeev Gupta, Commander Amit Nagpal and Sailor Ragesh — were working at Al Dahra Global Technologies and Consultancy Services, a defence services provider company.
  • The company is owned by an Omani national, Khamis al-Ajmi, a retired squadron leader of the Royal Oman Air Force. This man too, was arrested along with the eight Indians, but he was released in November 2022.
  • The company’s old website, which no longer exists, said it provided training, logistics and maintenance services to the Qatari Emiri Naval Force (QENF).
  • On its new website, the company is called Dahra Global, but there is no mention of the connection to the QENF, nor of the seven former Navy officers who had leadership roles in the company.
Why the men arrested?
  • The charges against the men were never made public, but the fact they were put in solitary confinement led to speculation that they had been detained in connection with a security-related offence.
Qatar and India
  • The two countries have had friendly relations for decades. Since Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Qatar in November 2008, the first by an Indian Prime Minister, the relationship has burgeoned.
  • The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani, visited India in 2015, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi went to Qatar in 2016.
  • External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has visited the country on at least three occasions. The late Sushma Swaraj became the first Indian Foreign Minister to visit Qatar in 2018.
  • In 2021, India was among the top four export destinations for Qatar; it is also among the top three sources of Qatar’s imports.
  • The bilateral trade is valued at $15 billion, which is mostly LNG and LPG exports from Qatar worth over $13 billion.
  • Defence co-operation has been officially described as a “pillar” of Indian-Qatar ties.
  • The India-Qatar Defence Cooperation Agreement, signed during Prime Minister Singh’s November 2008 visit, was a significant turning point. The agreement was extended for another five years in 2018.
  • QENF delegations participated in two maritime exercises in India in 2021. Two editions of a joint naval exercise called Zair Al Bahr have been held.
Source- Indian Express

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