Chandigarh , March 31: The controversial death sentences pronounced on 17 Indian workers in the United Arab Emirates has led to a pall of gloom across Punjab, home to 16 of the 17 young men (between 18 to 27) who now face the gallows in a faraway foreign land.

In the border village of Melawal near Amritsar, 96-year old Anek Singh is trying desperately to cope with the knowledge that his 21-year-old grandson could be executed in two weeks’ time.
“Sukhjinder is a good boy. He could never be involved in killing someone. Those people have obviously made a huge mistake,” said the aging farmer, who braved an impossible journey all the way to Jaitu town near Ludhiana to join a procession where parents and relatives of the men sentenced in Sharjah had gathered.
“It will be the end for all of us if our children are killed,” said Anek Singh, trying somehow to seek comfort in the recent return of Arvinder Singh, his other grandson who too was arrested and tried for the Pakistan national’s murder in 2009, but let off later for want of evidence and sent home.
Arvinder, also a construction worker like his less-fortunate sibling, said: “More than 70 Indian workers were picked up and accused of the murder. Several who had finished their contracts were arrested from Sharjah airport minutes before boarding the flight to India. Most of us did not even know each other.”
He said: “We were subjected to torture and denied any food or water for three whole days. I believe the 17 sentenced to death may have confessed to escape third-degree in the police station.” None of the accused were ever presented in the court that eventually condemned them. “We were periodically informed about the proceedings in jail,” Arvinder recalled.
Most families back in Punjab had no idea that their relatives had been charged with murder. “It was almost six months before we were told, and that too when we made enquiries when the employing firm stopped sending the salary cheques,” said a visibly-distraught Ranjit Kaur, whose husband Dharampal Singh now also faces death — about which their two infant children are completely in the dark.
Equally despondent, Jaswinder Singh, also a resident of Patti near Amritsar, faces the grim prospect of losing his brother Kulwinder Singh, the only earning member of his poor family. “Kulwinder has been framed. He told me the sentence was pronounced after a trial where none of the accused could even understand what was being said, both by the police and the lawyers. How can they hang my brother, who does not understand a single word of Arabic?” he asked.
The despondency afflicting the families involved is almost complete. “We made repeated pleas to the state government as well as to New Delhi. But no one has bothered to listen to us until the day the Sharjah court condemned our children,” said Balraj Singh, weeping helplessly for his son Arvinder Singh, who went to the Gulf in search of better prospects.
“The death sentence is most cruel. It amounts to cold-blooded murder. I will never forgive those people,” he wept.
Many relatives now plan to travel to New Delhi in the hope of bringing pressure on the government to bail out their boys. “We are poor folk and cannot fight legal battles in a foreign country. Dilli is our last and only hope,” said Jagdev Singh, another aging farmer trying to save his 23-year-old son Sukhjot Singh’s life.

Asit Jolly