New Delhi: A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court of India seeking to halt the scheduled execution of Nimisha Priya, a Keralite nurse currently on death row in Yemen. The execution is reportedly set for July 16. The matter was mentioned before a vacation bench comprising Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice Joymalya Bagchi by Senior Advocate Ragenth Basant, who urged the court to list the petition urgently in light of the impending execution date.
Appearing along with Advocate K Subhash Chandran, Basant informed the bench that under Shariat law, execution can be averted if the victim’s family agrees to accept “blood money”, a form of financial compensation. The legal team argued that diplomatic negotiations could still be pursued to explore this option and save Nimisha Priya’s life.
Nimisha Priya, a native of Palakkad, has been on death row since 2020 after a Yemeni court sentenced her for the alleged murder of Talal Abdo Mehdi, a Yemeni businessman, in July 2017. Her final appeal was dismissed by Yemen’s Supreme Judicial Council in November 2023, though the court left open the possibility of a pardon if the victim’s family accepted blood money under Yemeni law.
Despite the claims of execution, official sources in the MEA and the Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia have not confirmed any such development. India does not have an embassy in Yemen, and Nimisha is imprisoned in Sana’a, a region under Houthi control, making direct diplomatic intervention difficult. The ongoing civil conflict in Yemen has severely limited access for foreign missions and complicated communication.
