- Sunday, April 20, 2025
The southern Indian state’s former minister KT Rama Rao, who worked tirelessly to secure the individuals’ release, tweeted after they met their family members at the airport.
By: Shubham Ghosh
FIVE men from the current-day Indian state of Telangana, who had been in jail in Dubai for 18 years, have finally returned to India and reunited with their families.
A video about the families’ happy reunion, which was felicitated by the state’s former minister and a leader of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), KT Rama Rao, went viral on social media.
According to reports, the five men — Shivarathri Mallesh, Shivarathri Ravi, Gollem Nampally, Dundugula Laxman, and Shivarathri Hanmanthu — all hailing from the state’s Rajanna Sircilla district, were working in Dubai when they were accused in the the death of a Nepali national, who worked in the Gulf nation as a watchman. They were charged and given 25 years of jail sentences. It happened in 2005 when Telangana was yet to become a separate state and was part of undivided Andhra Pradesh.
Read: With nearly 12m arrivals, India tops list for most number of passengers at Dubai airport
Sircilla is also the constituency that Rao represents in the Telangana assembly.
“So glad these guys are home,” he said in a post on X retweeting a long post in Telugu and a video of the families’ emotional reunion at Hyderabad airport, by his party.
Read: India project wins award at World Government Summit in Dubai
So glad these guys are home ? https://t.co/bovGSMJ19t
— KTR (@KTRBRS) February 21, 2024
The BRS, which led the Telangana statehood movement and was in power since its birth till last year when it lost the election to the Indian National Congress, said Rao consistently looked into the case and worked through diplomatic channels towards the release of the five individuals.
In 2011, he visited Nepal and met the family of the deceased Nepali national and handed them a financial compensation of Rs 15 lakh.
According to a report by India’s NDTV, the language barrier in Dubai complicated the case and the five Indian men faced a harsh sentence from a court in Dubai despite making appeals and efforts. Their initial amnesty petition was also rejected by the court, which saw their stay behind the bars getting longer.
It was only after the laws in Dubai witnessed a change that the situation improved for the Indians. Last September, Rao, with the help of the Indian external affairs ministry, got an audience with the ruler of Dubai, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, to plead for amnesty in the case. Al Maktoum is also the vice president and prime minister of the UAE.
Eventually, the men’s mercy petition was approved and weeks of negotiations saw them getting released.
