Locked in Riyadh jail, hope surfaces for Baljinder Singh

Sanjay Bumbroo

Tribune News Service

Nabha, June 20

The family of Baljinder Singh, a resident of Nabha, who is languishing in the Riyadh jail in Saudi Arabia after being convicted in a drug abuse case on April 30 this year, have high hopes of his returning to Punjab.

Talking to mediapersons here on Wednesday, Khushdeep Kaur, wife of Baljinder Singh, said officials of the Indian Embassy had contacted them and sought details about the disease of her husband and the medicines he was taken. 

She said she had also been able to talk to her husband after the Indian Embassy took up the case with the officials in Saudi Arabia.

Khushdeep Kaur said her husband told her that he had two bouts of fits in the jail but the jail authorities were not providing him any medical aid. 

She said if the jail authorities there failed to provide prescribed medicines, her husband might go into depression. 

She claimed that after coming to know about the imprisonment of her father, her daughter was also not keeping well and was depressed.

It is pertinent to mention here that Baljinder had gone to Riyadh to work on contract. Earlier, he was suffering from fits (mirgi) for which he was taking tablet Revotryl 0.5 as recommended by doctors of PGI, Chandigarh. 

Later, Khushdeep Kaur had sent the medicine through a co-worker Karnail Singh of Rara Sahib, near Ludhiana, who was arrested by the Riyadh police on March 12, 2017. Both of them were released on bail after four days. The two were convicted by the Riyadh court on April 30 this year. 

They filed an appeal in the court on May 27 and the court gave them one month’s time to prove their innocence, he added.

Dhillon said he had taken up the case with Gen VK Singh (Retd), who immediately informed the Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia to take up the case with the authorities there for the release of two Punjabis.