As Nimisha Priya’s fate hangs in balance, a look at how other Indians on death row abroad got a pardon

In such cases, government assistance is through legal aid, if needed, and consular access. In the Nimisha Priya case, for example, in response to a question in Parliament last year, the government had said that it “is providing all possible assistance in the case including by seeking consular access to Nimisha Priya in jail and providing a lawyer to represent her case from the Indian Community Welfare Fund (ICWF). The matter regarding the payment of blood money towards the release of Nimisha Priya is between the family of the deceased and Nimisha Priya’s family.”

In the past, there have been a few instances of Indians on death row abroad seeking, and in some cases receiving, pardon, with ‘blood money’ payments sometimes made by businessmen. Here are a few cases:

Abdul Rahim in Saudi Arabia

Abdul Rahim, a native of Kozhikode, was working as a driver in Saudi Arabia and was sentenced to death for an incident in 2006. A 15-year-old boy, the son of Rahim’s employers, died after his breathing device came off while Rahim was driving. Rahim has now spent 18 years in prison and is yet to be released.

In 2023, the victim’s family had agreed to pardon him and through a crowd-funding effort spearheaded by the residents of his locality in Kozhikode, Rs 34 crore in blood money was raised in 2024 to secure Rahim’s release. A final order from a court in Riyadh is awaited for his release.

Former Indian Navy personnel in Qatar

Eight former Indian Navy personnel were arrested in Qatar in August 2022 in an alleged case of espionage and sentenced to death in 2023. The MEA had said that it was “deeply shocked” by the death sentence. The charges against the men, who were working at Dahra Global Technologies and Consultancy Services, a defence services provider company, remain unclear.

With the men being former Indian Navy personnel, the case saw intervention at the highest levels. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met the family members of the accused and assured them that the government would make all efforts to secure their release.

The MEA had filed an appeal in the case, and the death sentence was commuted with an appellate court in Qatar handing them prison terms. They were eventually released early in 2024.

Becks Krishnan in the UAE

In 2012, Becks Krishnan, a native of Thrissur in Kerala, who was working as a driver in Abu Dhabi, was arrested for killing a six-year-old Sudanese boy in a road accident. He was sentenced to death by the UAE Supreme Court in 2013. After spending nearly nine years in prison in Abu Dhabi, he returned to Kerala in 2021 after businessman M A Yusuff Ali paid 500,000 dirhams, which is a little over a crore in rupees, to the victim’s family, after years of negotiations. Krishnan’s family had reached out to Yusuff Ali for help.

Indians sentenced to death in the UAE

In 2016, 10 young men from Punjab were sentenced to death in the UAE after a fight in a labour camp resulted in the death of a Pakistani man. In 2017, a court in Sharjah reduced their death sentence to one to three-and-a-half years in prison, after Dubai-based businessman SPS Oberoi paid Rs 6.4 crore in blood money to the family of the deceased.

In a similar case, in 2010, 17 men – 16 from Punjab and one from Haryana – were sentenced to death for the 2009 murder of a Pakistani national in Sharjah. They were released and returned to India in 2013 after Oberoi deposited blood money, some of which was collected through donations. In this case, the Indian consulate had provided the accused with lawyers.

Arjunan Athimuthu in Kuwait

Arjunan Athimuthu from Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu was on death row in Kuwait for allegedly killing Abdul Wajid, a Malappuram native, in a fight in 2013. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment after Rs 30 lakh was paid as blood money in 2017 to the family of the deceased.