There are more than 10,000 Indian nationals in jails abroad, informed Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to a parliamentary panel. According to the sixth report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs made public on Tuesday (Apr 2), 10,152 Indians are currently in various jails around the world.

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The countries with the highest number of Indian nationals in jail are Saudi Arabia and the UAE, with more than 2,000 prisoners each. Other Gulf countries with a high number of Indian prisoners are Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.

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India's immediate neighbours China and Nepal, also have 173 and 1,137 prisoners in their jails, respectively. The Indian foreign ministry informed the parliament that steps are being taken under various agreements with countries to bring back the inmates home, reported news outlet the Indian Express.

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The report named 'Indian Diaspora Overseas including NRIs, PIOs, OCIs and Migrant Worker' also mentions that nine of the 12 countries which have more than 100 Indian nationals in their jails do have a Transfer of Sentenced Persons agreement with India.

What is Transfer of Sentenced Persons agreement?

According to the Transfer of Sentenced Persons agreement, a person serving a jail sentence in a country can be repatriated to their home country and can continue to serve the sentence there. The process, however, takes a lot of time and permission from various officials.

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As per the MEA: “Consent of the prisoner, host country and transferring country are required for transfer under TSP agreement. The Ministry of Home Affairs is the nodal authority overseeing the transfer of prisoners under TSP agreement and is currently processing a number of cases.”

Despite the agreement, only eight people have been brought back from various jails across the world to serve their prison sentence in India between 2023 to 2025. They were repatriated from Iran (3), the United Kingdom (3), Russia (2) and Cambodia (2).

The Indian external affairs ministry also mentioned in the report that they provide help to these individuals via Indian missions, embassies, and posts as well.