By james art Jagtar Singh Johal, a Sikh activist from Dumbarton, was in Punjab, northern India, for his wedding in 2017 when his family said he was arrested and put into an unmarked car.
Mr Johal was allegedly tortured, including with electric shocks, and faced the death penalty for his campaign for Sikh rights.
He claims he was forced to sign blank confessions after being tortured and forced to record a video broadcast on Indian television.
The 37-year-old has been held in solitary confinement in a Delhi jail since 2019.
In 2022, a UN panel admitted that Mr. Johal had been arbitrarily detained in India.
His brother Gurpreet Singh Johal, who is leading the campaign for his release, met Foreign Secretary David Lammy on Wednesday and held a session for Scottish MPs in Westminster on Thursday.
He said: “It was difficult. So on (Monday), when I look at Jagtar’s wife, I will remember the phone call I had seven years ago when she was hysterical when he was taken away. Only she knows how it felt when her husband was taken away before her eyes.
“So it’s hard in that respect because she’s been through that. It was difficult to deal with her expectations because every time it comes to a hearing we expect progress. It gets tricky at these points.
“Jagtar’s wife would have come to the UK with high hopes that the government would support, protect and bring him back, clearly that hasn’t happened.”
He added: “The longer they keep him, that’s the sentence. It does not matter if in 10-15 years he will be acquitted. They wasted 10-15 years of his life. This is his sentence, really, if you’re in custody for 10-15 years, your life is wasted.”
“It’s hard because Jagtar’s wife has seen our cousins get married, cousins on my side of the family, because they had one child, then they had a second child, and she’s still watching and thinking, ‘When is it going to be my turn? .
Gurpreet said his brother facing the death penalty raises the stakes even higher. He said he feared parallels with the case of a man involved in the 2008 bombing of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel.
“India has leaked the confession videos twice in cases like this. The last time was the Taj Hotel bomber and he was quickly convicted and hanged. This is the fear that they will do with Jagtar, they will convict and hang him,” he said.
Gurpreet had a 45-minute meeting with Mr Lammy, along with Mr Johal MP Douglas McAllister and officials on Wednesday, where they suggested ways to get him released and returned to the UK.
He faces nine charges in India, eight of which are in federal court. It took nearly five years for prosecutors to indict him.
Gurpreet said: “It was a positive meeting on the basis that he had already raised Jagtar’s case with his colleague when he went to India in July. So it’s a relief when with the previous government it took us years to get to this stage. So having Jagtar’s case on the agenda was reassuring.
Gurpreet, who works as a solicitor and is a Labor councilor in West Dunbartonshire, added: “Seven years will be up on November 4, Jagtar has not been convicted of any crime to date and he will not be convicted of any crime.
“The Indian government is sticking to its line that Jagtar is guilty. David (Lammy) raised the issue of the delays in how long it had been since he was arrested and the torture element of it.
“At the end of the day, we all know there is no evidence against Jagtar. Seven years have passed and there is not a single piece of evidence against him. If they had, they would have created it and moved on.