Aramco official jailed for illegal satellite phone in Chamoli recalls his experience as ‘highly traumatic’
Friday, 28 October 2022 | PNS | DEHRADUN
Police clarify that all actions were taken according to set procedure
The head of investor relations at the major oil exporter Aramco, Fergus MacLeod was arrested by Chamoli police on July 12 for carrying an illegal satellite phone during his visit to Uttarakhand earlier this year. The 62-year-old senior British executive of oil giant Saudi Aramco has termed his experience as ‘highly traumatic’ in a recent interview with UK’s Financial Times. The newspaper has reported him as saying that he was arrested on July 12 from his hotel in Chamoli district for carrying a banned satellite phone and was kept in jail till July 18. The police arrested him after picking up the coordinates of his satellite phone which he had claimed to have turned on and off in the hotel while denying using it during his stay there. The use of satellite phones by foreigners was banned by the Central Government after the Mumbai terrorist attack in 2008. MacLeod has said in the interview that he was unaware of the ban and nobody even stopped him when he passed through two airports in India. He said that he had to spend nearly a week in the jail where he was allegedly kept with serious criminals and the prison authorities also allegedly denied him basic legal rights like his request for legal counsel and contacting his family. He was released after paying a fine of Rs 1,000, as reported by the newspaper. He said that though he appreciated the way he was treated in some respects, he was also left shaken by the experience. “It was a frightening place and a highly traumatic experience, where I was in a communal cell with long-term prisoners who had committed very serious crimes,” as UK’s Financial Times quoted MacLeod. Speaking on these claims, the Chamoli superintendent of police (SP) Shweta Choubey told The Pioneer that the police followed all standard procedures as per the rules before as well as after the arrest of MacLeod including contacting the British High Commission. There was nothing wrong in the procedure followed by the police, added Choubey.
It is pertinent to mention here that the high altitude region of Chamoli district borders the Tibetan region in China.
