Government plans to allow foreign criminals to serve sentences in their native countries

George Iype in New Delhi

The government has initiated a major exercise to mute international criticism about poor conditions in India's prisons.

The ministry of external affairs is finalising a series of bilateral pacts with several countries on the transfer of convicted criminals.

MEA sources said these agreements are aimed at the quick transfer of foreign criminals serving jail terms in India and similar transfers of Indian nationals lodged in overseas prisons.

The bilateral accords will be known as the Transfer of Convicted Offenders Agreement.

The government has already signed such treaties with Spain and Britain. Similar agreements with Canada, France, Saudi Arabia, the United States and the UAE are in the pipeline.

The agreement will permit the criminals to undergo their sentences in their own countries. However, the transfer will require the criminal's consent as well as the permission of both countries.

Sources said the reason for the government's efforts to sign TCOA accords stems from the adverse international publicity that poor jail conditions in India have created over many years.

The home ministry says at least 200 foreign offenders -- most of them held for drug and terrorist offences -- are lodged in various jails across the country.

The conditions in over-crowded Indian jails have often got global attention. For instance, the family of a British girl, convicted and jailed in a prison in Kerala on drug-smuggling charges, recently sought the help of the British clergy for her release. The 21-year-old Britisher accused the jail staff of harassing her daily.

In the seventies, Mary Taylor -- a Britisher convicted for Naxalite activities in Bihar -- wrote a book on Indian jail conditions. A similar exercise is being undertaken by the notorious Charles Sobhraj, who has lived in New Delhi's Tihar jail for more then twenty years.