Rights Activist Freed from Indian Jail

(The Herald) – A human rights activist from Scotland was released from an Indian prison yesterday after a year detained without charge. The 42-year-old was accused of aiding Naga militants and travelling with an armed escort but was never charged. He was held under the national security act, which allows suspects to be detained for a year. Mr. Ward told a New Delhi newspaper shortly before his release from the high-security Tihar prison that he had been treated well and planned to return to the closed mountain state. He is expected to be deported within days. His family are planning a low-key welcome in Edinburgh , where he grew up after his early years in Assam . Mr Ward first became interested in the plight of the Nagas – a mainly Christian population – while serving a series of prison sentences for robbery in the UK during the 1980s.

Mr Ward said he had not been deterred from campaigning for the Naga people. Before his detention, he said he had found evidence of massacres in two villages and that local officials were trafficking drugs.

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