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Jailed Kerala nurse’s family wants to meet her
Priya later told her relatives that she injected sedatives just to retrieve her passport and not to kill him.
The eight-year-old daughter and aged mother of Nimisha Priya, a nurse from Kerala, who is on death row in Yemen for killing a Yemini citizen, approached the external affairs ministry on Thursday seeking permission to travel to Yemen to meet Priya.
The Nimisha Priya Action Council, a body formed to help the distraught woman, said it will bear expenses of both if the MEA grants permission. “It is a last-ditch effort to save her from gallows. We will arrange a meeting with the family of the slain Yemini citizen. They will seek pardon directly and we hope mercy will prevail,” said Babu John, convener of the council.
The case dates back to 2017 when Priya (33) and her colleague Hanan, a Yemini national, injected Talal Abu Mahadi, a Yemeni citizen, with sedatives and killed him. There are multiple narratives of the story at this point. But all agree that Talal started misappropriating money and misrepresented himself through forged documents as Priya’s husband, abused her physically and seized her passport.
Priya later told her relatives that she injected sedatives just to retrieve her passport and not to kill him.
On Tuesday, the Delhi high court had rejected a plea to direct the Centre to negotiate payment of blood money to save her life. The Centre informed the court that no embassy can negotiate to pay blood money and MEA has limitations in this. (Blood money means a compensation paid by an offender to kin’s family to pardon him).
But the government said it will provide all other helps and it prompted the council to seek the permission for both, daughter and mother, to travel to the west Asian country.
Mother of an eight-year-old girl, Priya is from Kollengode in Palakkad district and was working in Yemen’s Sana’a since 2011. Three years later, she set up a nursing clinic with Talal, whom she met through a labour contractor, her relatives said. Later, her husband and child returned to India but she could not return on account of the war in Yemen. Under Yemeni law, only its nationals are allowed to set up such medical firms.
“When the clinic started delivering good returns, Talal started taking out all the money, Priya questioned him. In return, he harassed and tortured her. She complained to police who failed to take appropriate action. Angered by her police complaint, Talal took away her passport,” said her husband, Tomi Thomas.
In 2017, Priya and Hanan injected Talal with sedatives and killed him. They reportedly chopped his body before disposing it in a water tank of the clinic and fled the city. Talal’s body was recovered a few days later when local residents complained of a stench and a month later, both Priya and Hanan were arrested, her relatives said.
In 2018, while Priya was awarded capital punishment, Hanan was sentenced to life imprisonment by a lower court. Though she appealed to the supreme council, her plea was rejected.
