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Nimisha Priya was nervous after execution order, must be relieved now: Husband
A Kerala Sunni cleric had reached out to a Yemeni scholar to intervene in the Nimisha Priya case.
The authorities in Yemen on Tuesday deferred the execution of Kerala nurse Nimisha Priya, which was scheduled on July 16, indefinitely, lifting the hopes of her family for her freedom.
The Yemeni administration’s order, seen by HT, stated that the execution of Priya, held in a jail in Sanaa for the murder of her business partner and Yemeni national Talal Abdo Mahdi, has been deferred until a new date is announced. The order gives the family of Priya and the outfit formed to secure her release more time to hold talks with Mahdi’s family and reach an amicable settlement.
Priya’s husband Tomy Thomas, who works with a private firm in Coimbatore, expressed relief and hope following the decision.
“I’m relieved. It’s a foundation on which we can build and make efforts to pave the way for my wife’s freedom. There are more hurdles in the way, but we are hopeful that she can come home soon,” he told HT over the phone.
Thomas said he has been in regular touch with Priya over the past few years.
“When the (date of execution) order came, she was nervous and tensed. Hopefully, she will be a bit more relieved now,” he said, underlining that her release from the jail in Sanaa cannot happen without the nod from Mahdi’s family.
“If a settlement can be reached via diya (blood money), she can be freed,” he said, referring to the form of compensation paid to a victim’s family in exchange for reprieve from punishment.
Meanwhile, India’s Grand Mufti and prominent Kerala Sunni cleric Kanthapuram AP Aboobacker Musaliyar, who had reached out to Mahdi’s family in Yemen through a renowned Yemeni scholar, said on Tuesday that efforts will continue to convince the victim’s family to pardon the Malayali nurse.
“When I heard about the order of execution of Nimisha Priya, I requested influential Islamic scholars in Yemen, some of whom I know personally, to intervene in the matter and do what they can. Today, we have got the information that the execution has been deferred in order to give more time for both families to reach an understanding. We can pray that humanity wins,” Musaliyar told reporters in Kozhikode.
He said he decided to intervene as the matter concerns a person’s life. “If I can do anything to save a person’s life, I thought I should do. In general matters like this, we don’t look through the prism of caste or religion,” he said, adding that he has sent a letter to the Prime Minister’s office informing the latter about his efforts so far.
A source close to Musaliyar told HT that his office had contacted Yemeni scholar Sheikh Habib Umar Bin Hafiz in a bid to contact Mahdi’s family.
“Hafiz is a very influential Sufi-Sunni scholar who commands a large following in Yemen, which includes the family members of Mahdi. His family traces it’s lineage to Prophet Muhammad and has cultural links with Kerala, particularly, the Thangal family in Malappuram. In fact, Hafiz has visited Kerala on a number of occasions, most recently in February this year for our programmes,” a person close to Kanthapuram Musaliyar said.
“Right now, not all of Mahdi’s family members approve of pardoning Priya. Efforts are on to get them on the same page,” he said.
Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan commended Musaliyar for his interventions. “The decision is the result of tireless efforts of good hearts, full of humanity and brotherhood,” he said.
At the same time, Samuel Jerome Bhaskaran, a social activist in Yemen who acts as a key interlocutor on the issue, claimed the decision to defer the execution was made without the consent of Mahdi’s family.
“The family has not objected to the execution so far. It was Sheikh Abdul Malik al-Nahya, the ruler of the al-Wasab region, who helped us in getting the execution deferred by going over the office of the state public prosecutor. The Indian government’s interventions also helped. We had the information since Sunday that the execution will be deferred. But we were asked not to publicise it as it could create law and order issues,” Bhaskaran told local media.
Nimisha, a native of Kollengode in Palakkad district of Kerala, had boarded the flight to Yemen as a 19-year-old in 2008 in search of nursing jobs. In 2020, she was found guilty by a local court for murdering Mahdi by injecting him with sedatives. The Kerala nurse, who had started a clinic in alleged partnership with Talal, had sedated him in order to retrieve her passport from him that he had illegally kept. According to the nurse, she was physically and financially exploited by Talal for long periods forcing her to sedate him, but he died due to overdose.
