Dalvinder Singh Jagpal, a 61-year-old Indian trader incarcerated in the East Combined Maximum Security Prison, has been punished with six months of total isolation after reporting that prison authorities were denying him medical attention, according to an investigation by Cubanet, published this Wednesday.
The report came through a call made on July 9 by another foreign inmate who requested anonymity, according to Cubanet.
According to that source, Lieutenant Colonel José Andrés de Valle Vázquez, head of Building 3 of the prison, ordered the suspension of phone calls, cell outings, and visits for six months, including the monthly visits from officials of the Indian embassy in Havana, his only consular contact.
Jagpal is located on the 4th floor, south wing of building 3, and had been requesting dental attention for weeks due to severe tooth pain, according to report by Cubanet.
More recently, the inmate also requested treatment for a twisted ankle that causes him intense swelling and prevents him from walking, but the prison rehabilitation officer, First Lieutenant Yoan Quesada Alarcón, denied him any assistance on the grounds that "there is no doctor, no dentist, no materials for fillings, no painkillers, nothing," reported the independent newspaper.
The repeated refusals of attention had already been publicly reported by Singh Jagpal in mid-June, and that report was said to have been the trigger for the retaliation, according to the same source.
Cubanet also pointed out that Jagpal was not allowed to receive painkillers sent by family members from abroad, even though other inmates had been able to access such assistance.
The case of this Indian citizen has accumulated over two decades of documented abuses. Jagpal has been incarcerated since November 2002, which far exceeds the original 10-year sentence imposed on him, according to Cubanet, "by conviction," meaning without evidence or witnesses, for having stayed in a rental house where he coincided with foreigners apparently involved in a case of child corruption.
Throughout this time, he has been a victim of a systematic pattern of retaliation every time he reports his conditions or requests consular assistance.
In January 2015, he was placed in a punishment cell known as "the Polish," in Aguica prison, Matanzas, with no phone calls for three months and no visits from friends for three years. He reported that officials sent dangerous prisoners to throw excrement at him through the vents, according to a report from the (OCDH).
In 2026, the cycle of harassment intensified. Between February 21 and March 27, he was subjected to punitive isolation as retaliation for his statements to the independent press, according to previous reports on the harassment of the Indian prisoner.
On March 21, at 2:00 in the morning, the same Lieutenant Colonel Valle Vázquez and a guard burst into his cell and forced him to undress and squat; on April 9, other officers repeated the procedure, according to those reports.
It was also reported that a TV remote control, medications, and food supplies sent by her daughter from abroad were confiscated and destroyed, according to the same source.
Jagpal is also suffering from severe hypertension without receiving the necessary medications, according to human rights organizations.
The current isolation imposed even severs the connection with the embassy of their country, which has already been criticized by the OCDH since 2015 for not making "the minimum effort" to ensure the fundamental rights of the Indian prisoner in Cuba are respected.
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