Indian Navy Veteran Still In Qatari Prison After Death Sentence Commuted
India says a Navy veteran remains in a Qatari jail in a separate case, with officials continuing consular engagement on the matter. Image courtesy: X.com/@YeshiSeli
An Indian Navy veteran, whose death penalty by a Qatari court was commuted in 2023 along with seven others, continues to be in prison in another case and has been unable to return to India.
Purnendu Tiwary was among the eight former Indian Navy personnel arrested by Qatar on charges of spying in 2022 and sentenced to death.
While the other seven persons returned to India after a Qatari court commuted their death sentence, Tiwary was detained in prison in another case, according to the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).
“The eighth naval veteran…he has a particular case against him. He was detained in that. It has nothing to do with the earlier case,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in his weekly briefing on Friday (April 17, 2026).
“The court there has given a ruling under which he has been given a sentence. We are in touch with him, with his family, and his lawyers. So, that is where this particular issue is,” Jaiswal said.
According to information from Qatar, Tiwary was accused of financial irregularities related to his former employer and was detained in that case.
The MEA reacted to Tiwary’s incarceration in Qatar after his sister, Meetu Bhargava, in a social media post, said the government failed to secure his return to the country.
“Commander Tiwary has endured nearly four years of extreme hardship in Doha and has now been languishing in jail for almost five months. He is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) along with other serious medical conditions. His health is deteriorating rapidly,” she said.
“What is even more alarming is that the cases against him were stitched out of the very same case for which he had already been pardoned by (the Qatari Amir), despite having no role in the company’s financial matters,” she added
