Rs 34 crore ‘blood money’ crowdfunded to free Kerala man facing death penalty in Saudi Arabia
As of last week, the crowdfunding effort had raised Rs 5 crore. Then, the plea to save Rahim went viral on social media, and several celebrities, politicians, and NRI groups joined the drive.
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Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan took to Facebook and said, “Keralites across the world have united to mobilise Rs 34 crore for the release of Abdul Rahim, who is facing death sentence in Saudi Arabia."Keralites living across the world have crowdfunded Rs 34 crore by Friday to meet the ‘blood money’ to enable the release of a Kozhikode native facing the death penalty in Saudi Arabia.
Abdul Rahim has been in prison for the last 18 years after a 15-year-old boy, who was left in his care and was being kept alive by a life support system, died while being driven in a car by him.
The incident took place in 2006, and in 2018, a court in Saudi Arabia sentenced Rahim to death. The sentence was later upheld by the country’s top court. Last year, the victim’s family expressed their readiness to pardon him in exchange for Rs 34 crore in blood money. Mediators had fixed April 16 as the deadline for paying the money and saving Rahim from execution.
However, the impoverished family of Rahim, who had gone to Saudi Arabia to work as a driver, faced an uphill task in raising the amount. In the last week of March, residents of Rahim’s locality in Kozhikode formed an action committee with the aim of raising the required money, and they launched an app – Save Abdul Rahim – to facilitate crowdfunding in a transparent manner.
As of last week, the crowdfunding effort had raised Rs 5 crore. Then, the plea to save Rahim went viral on social media, and several celebrities, politicians, and NRI groups joined the drive. Businessman Boby Chemmanur, chairman of the Boby Group of Companies, even launched a yatra from Thiruvananthapuram in south Kerala to Kasaragod in the north, raising Rs 1 crore. Putting this and all other donations from around the world together, the action committee raised the required Rs 34 crore by Friday.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan took to Facebook and said, “Keralites across the world have united to mobilise Rs 34 crore for the release of Abdul Rahim, who is facing death sentence in Saudi Arabia. To save a life, to wipe the tears of a family, Kerala has created a noble example of love. It is a declaration that Kerala is a fortress of brotherhood, which communalism cannot destroy.”
Rahim had gone to Saudi Arabia in 2006 to work as a driver for a family. He was 26 years old at the time. The family then assigned him to look after their paralyzed son, a 15-year-old boy who needed the support of an apparatus to breathe. On December 24, 2006, while Rahim was driving a car with the boy in the backseat, the life support system came off, leading to the boy’s death. This happened just 28 days after Rahim reached the country. He has been in jail since then.
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