- Monday, March 10, 2025
While a lobby group has moved the court seeking the government’s diplomatic interventions, it has tried to dissuade the victim’s family citing Yemen’s hostile conditions.
By: Shubham Ghosh
A TOP court in Delhi on Tuesday (5) asked the Narendra Modi government to reply to a plea by the mother of a nurse from the southern state of Kerala facing death sentence in Yemen for murdering a national of that country.
Nimisha Priya, 34, was convicted of murdering Talal Abdo Mahdi, who died six years ago after she allegedly gave him sedatives.
Priya’s appeal against the verdict was rejected by the top court of the West Asian nation last month and her execution was ordered. However, as per Yemeni law, the Indian nurse can still secure a pardon from the victim’s family by paying diyah or “blood money”.
Read: Qatar accepts India’s appeal against death penalty to former navy officials: report
The nurse’s mother moved the court in India earlier this year seeking permission to travel to Yemen which has put a travel ban on Indian nationals.
Subhash Chandran K R, who is representing her in the case, said the petitioner was not requesting the government to pay the blood money but only a permission to got to Yemen.
Priya’s mother had moved the high court earlier this year earlier to seek permission to travel to Priya as Yemen has placed a travel ban on Indian nationals.
The court recently rejected a petition filed by a lobby group Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council saying India does not have diplomatic presence in the West Asian nation.
The government’s counsel urged against travelling to Yemen saying it would not be possible for the authorities to provide any service.
“There is no single Indian there to help you or to provide security to you. We don’t want people to go there or to be exposed to hostile position. There is no consular officer there or even connection with the current government in Yemen,” the counsel said in court, reports added.
The government’s judgement is based on the hostile political situation in Yemen where a civil war has been underway between the country’s official government and Houthi rebels for the last nine years. A visit to Yemen is considered unsafe for Indian nationals since New Delhi doesn’t recognise the Houthis. There is also no direct flight connecting India and Yemen.
The lobby group moved the high court last year and sought direction to the government to ‘facilitate diplomatic interventions as well as negotiations with the family of the victim on behalf of Nimisha Priya to save her life by paying blood money in accordance with the law of the land in a time-bound manner’, India’s Deccan Herald reported.
The petition also claimed that Mahdi had forged documents to show Priya as his wife to torture her. He was also accused of taking her passport and all the money that they had earned from a jointly run clinic. Priya was even reportedly locked up by the police for six days after she approached them to complain against Mahdi.
Deepa Joseph, lawyer and social activist and vice-chair of the Save Nimisha council told the BBC that the Narendra Modi government’s support is key to saving Nimisha. “The only option is to seek forgiveness from Mahdi’s family and negotiate blood money with them.”
