Bangladesh At Top, Nigeria Second In Terms Of Foreign Prisoners Languishing In Indian Jails

The number of foreign nationals languishing in Indian jails has increased in the last two years. These prisoners hail from many countries convicted in different crimes. According to government statistics, the largest number of foreign prisoners in Indian jails are from Bangladesh. However, the data for five years indicates a decrease in the number of foreign prisoners.

According to the National Crime Records (NCRB) Bureau's 2019 statistics, there are 5,608 foreign prisoners in the country's jails. More than half of these are undertrials. The maximum number of prisoners are from Bangladesh, followed by Nepal and Myanmar. According to the NCRB, a total of 5,608 foreign prisoners, including 832 women, were lodged in Indian jails till December 2019. Of these, 2,171 (38.71%) were convicted, 2,979 (53.12%) are undertrials while 40 (0.71%) were in custody.

The largest number of foreign prisoners are in the jails of West Bengal, where a total of 2316 prisoners are lodged. After that, Maharashtra is second where 517 prisoners are languishing. And on the third number is Uttar Pradesh where 505 prisoners are in jails. The highest number of foreign prisoners (3770) in India's jails are from Bangladesh, most of them are in Bengal jails. Such prisoners will have fewer problems in terms of language and food, but non-South Asians such as prisoners in Africa and Europe, America and Australia have problems with Indian food and linguistic barriers.

India's diet is a major issue for all, whether Japanese prisoners in Goa jail or Chinese in Bihar jail or Nigerian prisoners in Tihar jail in Delhi.

According to this report, out of the total 2,171 foreign prisoners sentenced, 1,867 are men and 304 are women. If we talk about the states, the highest number of 1379 convicted prisoners are in jails of West Bengal.

Out of a total of 2,171 convicted foreign prisoners, 1,470 are Bangladeshis, 686 are from Nigeria, 517 are Nepalese and 146 are from Myanmar.

The total number of foreign undertrials is 2,979 and of these, the highest number of cases are in West Bengal (576), followed by Maharashtra (466) and then Delhi (384).

Of the total 2,979 undertrial prisoners, 1043 are Bangladeshis, 228 are Nepalese, 155 are from Myanmar and 125 are from Nigeria.

A look at the statistics of the last five years, the number of foreign prisoners in the jails of the country has reduced. The total number of foreign prisoners was 6,733 in 2014, which came down to 6,620 in 2015, which fell further to 6,370 in 2016, but the biggest difference came in 2017 when the figure reached 4,917. According to statistics, for the last two years this data has started climbing back up. It shows an increase in 2018 (5,168) and 2019 (5,608), but the number of foreign prisoners has decreased by 16.7% during the year 2014-2019.

All the countries including America, Britain and Australia have been complaining to the Indian government that the citizens of their country who are lodged in Indian jails are facing various kinds of problems. These countries have also made several suggestions to the government through their embassies to aid the prisoners.