For days, the Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council had been staring at a frightening deadline. Nimisha, a nurse from Kerala convicted of murder in Yemen, was scheduled to be hanged. But through the long, tense hours of the previous night, something shifted.
“For the first time since the case began, the brother of the victim came to the table,” Subhash Chandran, lawyer and core member of the council, was quoted as saying.
“We talked all night. By late morning, the execution was deferred. We got what we wanted, some time to persuade the family now.”
Nimisha’s story is well documented. A trained nurse who went to Yemen for work in 2008, she found herself entrapped in an abusive partnership with her Yemeni business associate, Talal Abdo Mahdi. In 2017, she was convicted of sedating him, allegedly to recover her passport, but he died of an overdose. Out of panic, she dismembered his body and attempted to hide the crime. She was eventually awarded the death sentence and then, the date was set.
But under the Yemeni Sharia law, there remained one lifeline—blood money or diya. If the victim’s family accepts compensation and issues a pardon, the sentence can be revoked. Nimisha’s supporters reportedly offered up to $1 million.
For weeks, that door remained firmly shut.
“Diplomacy has its limits in a war-torn country like Yemen,” Chandran told a section of the media. “The Indian government tried its best. But there are challenges, so we turned to backchannels—to religion, to humanity. And that’s where the change came from.”
Chandran said faith, persistence, and an unlikely hotline between Kerala and Yemen changed the course.
He mentioned the efforts of Kanthapuram AP Aboobacker Musliyar, a prominent Indian Muslim cleric, whose intervention through the Markaz in Kerala helped establish direct communication with political and religious leaders in Yemen.
That led to negotiation that brought a member of the victim’s family to the table.
“They were under pressure from groups but leaders from Kerala were in touch with Yemen clerics, so they were persuaded,” Chandran said, referring to the victim’s family. “At first, they didn’t want to talk at all. But with persuasion, they listened. That gave us just enough hope.”
Chandran is clear-eyed about the path ahead.
“There will be no more hearings. The judiciary has done what it could. Now it’s entirely up to the victim’s family. If they accept the diya and pardon her, Nimisha lives. If not, we will lose her.”
“We are grateful to the Yemeni judicial system for giving us this window. It’s all we asked for—one chance to plead, to apologise unconditionally, to show we mean no disrespect, only deep remorse.”
Making a direct appeal to the Indian government and the public, Chandran said, “We ask the Government of India, religious leaders, and every person with influence—please help us. The window is open. But we don’t know for how long.”.
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