NRI PULSE STAFF REPORT

Washington, D.C., July 26, 2025 – Whereas greater than 10,500 Indian residents are behind bars throughout 86 international locations, america accounts for a comparatively small share: simply 169 prisoners, in keeping with figures tabled by India’s Ministry of Exterior Affairs (MEA) in Parliament this month. These numbers embody each these serving sentences and people awaiting trial.

The U.S. ranks far beneath Gulf nations akin to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the place hundreds of Indians are imprisoned, typically on prices of economic fraud, drug offences, or immigration violations. As compared, American prisons maintain barely 1.6 p.c of India’s whole abroad jail inhabitants.

Amongst these 169 instances, just one stands out for its severity: Raghunandan Yandamuri, a former tech skilled from Andhra Pradesh, is the one Indian nationwide on demise row in america. Yandamuri was convicted in 2014 of kidnapping and murdering a ten-month-old lady and her grandmother in Pennsylvania throughout a botched ransom plot. His execution, initially scheduled for 2018, has been indefinitely delayed by the state’s moratorium on capital punishment.

Particulars in regards to the nature of most offences dedicated by Indians in U.S. prisons stay unclear; American privateness legal guidelines limit the disclosure of nationality-specific crime knowledge.

Separate from prison incarceration, U.S. immigration authorities detained greater than 2,600 Indian nationals final yr for violations akin to unlawful entry and visa overstays.