Murder and blood money: The case of Nimisha Priya, the Kerala nurse on death row in Yemen

Nimisha Priya, lodged in a prison in Yemen since 2020, is counting the days to her death after she was held guilty for killing a Yemeni national, Talal Abdo Mahdi. Her options of coming out of jail alive seem slim, even as the Indian government is doing all that it can to bring her back home. Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan last week said that the Centre was leaving no stone unturned and would do all that it can to bring Priya home safely. “After the capital punishment awarded to Nimisha Priya, the government is making every effort to bring her back safely. The appellate court had upheld the verdict of the lower court. We have decided that we will go to the Supreme Court against this appellate court judgment,” he was quoted as telling news agency ANI. But, who is Nimisha Priya and why was she sentenced to death? We answer these questions and more. Nimisha Priya in Yemen Nimisha, a trained nurse from Palakkad in Kerala, and her family, comprising of her husband Tomy Thomas and their daughter, lived in Yemen. Reports say that her husband and daughter returned to India in 2014, but she continued to work in Yemen. After her husband returned home, Nimisha approached Talal Abdo Mahdi for help to set up her own clinic in Sana’a. She sought Mahdi’s support because, under Yemen law, only nationals are allowed to set up clinics and business firms. After she set up the clinic, things began to go awry and this is when ties between Mahdi and her deteriorate. According to reports, he started cornering all the revenue and also misrepresented himself as her husband to the Yemeni authorities. The News Minute quoted Nimisha as saying, “When I questioned Talal about this, he said he had made the claim so others would not pose problems assuming I am a single woman.” Nimisha alleges that after questioning Talal about the marriage claim, he began to torture and abuse her. Outlining the ordeal she went through, she said to The News Minute, “He confiscated my passport, he forced me to live with him. He would come to my house inebriated and attack me physically, threaten me to obey him, inflict injuries on me. He used to even bring his friends to my house at night, force me to do sexual favours for them. I used to run out each time to protect myself.” Unable to bear the abuse, she complained to the Yemen police and Talal was arrested and put behind bars. Post his release from jail, the mistreatment became even worse. Realising that there was no way out, she started plotting his murder. How she killed Talal? On 25 July 2017, she injected Talal with Ketamine, which led to his death. However, unable to find a place to bury him, Nimisha, sought help from her Hanan, another Yemeni nurse; the two chopped him into pieces, put them in a polythene bag and dumped in the water tank of her apartment. After Talal’s body was found by residents, the police launched a manhunt for her and she was finally arrested and put behind bars for the crime. Nimisha claims that she wasn’t given any legal aid and this led to her now facing a death sentence. Help for Nimisha While the government is doing all it can, an organisation in India has launched a campaign — Save Nimisha Priya — to help her family obtain a pardon. They are collecting funds that could be handed over to Talal’s family as blood money. In Yemen, the legal heir of a deceased can be compensated and in turn, the death sentence can be commuted. While no specific amount has been finalised, there have been talks of an amount of Rs 70 lakh — an amount that Nimisha says she cannot afford. The Centre has specifically stated that while her expenses inside prison would be borne by the government, it could not pay the blood money to Talal’s family and neither would it be involved in the negotiation process. With inputs from agencies Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.