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Journalism of Courage
A Shariah court in Saudi Arabia has ruled that one eye of a 30-year-old Indian salesman, from Kerala, be gouged out and donated to a Saudi national.
The ruling came after Puthan Veettil Naushad, who worked as an assistant in a shop attached to a petrol station near Dammam, allegedly hit Naif Muthef, a local resident, during an altercation two years ago. Saudi police said that in the scuffle, Naif lost his right eye.
According to the court, if Naushad doesn’t agree to have his right eye taken out, he has to remain in prison—forever.
Naushad, who was held incommunicado in a Dammam jail all this while, was allowed today to make a call home. ‘‘He wept and said Naif had an eye-problem even before the altercation with him, and used to wear thick glasses. Besides, he was injured on the brow, not in the eye,’’ say Naushad’s relatives.
‘‘I am ready to offer anything to save my husband’s eye,’’ Naushad’s wife, Suhaila, who last saw him three years ago, was quoted by AFP as saying.
Naushad’s nightmare began when Naif turned up at the shop where he worked, complaining that a battery charger he had bought did not work. An altercation folowed, and Naif got a bleeding cut on his brow. Naushad was packed off to jail.
A subsequent medical report said Naif had completely lost sight in one eye, and the Saudi court asked Naushad to pay for it—with his own. It put a rider, though: The eye should be gouged out only with Naushad’s consent.
According to Saudi law, an offender can be let off if the victim pardons him. Naushad’s friends in Saudi Arabia had pleaded with Naif to accept a large amount that they promised to pool and pay him, to pardon Naushad. But that did not work. The Saudi Supreme Court had heard Naushad’s appeal and invited a compromise, but Naif refused again.
Naushad had gone to Saudi Arabia eight years ago, and has two children at home here. Suhaila had petitioned the Indian Embassy in Riyadh for her husband’s safe release but that had not yielded any result, either.
‘‘We will check (about the case) when we are in Delhi,’’ the Foreign Ministry spokesperson, who is with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Russia, told agencies.
