Nurse's family pins hope on Indian govt

Uncertainty wracked the family of 34-year-old Nimisha Priya, who was sentenced to death by the Yemeni president on Monday, but welcomed the external affairs ministry's intervention and statement extending "all possible help" to secure her release.

- Vishnu Varma

From Kollengode in Palakkad district, Priya travelled to Yemen as a 19-year-old in 2009 in search of nursing jobs. In 2020, a local court in the west Asian nation found her guilty of murdering a Yemeni man, Talal Abdo Mahdi, by injecting him with sedatives. Though the country's top judicial body greenlit the capital punishment, it left the door open for her family to seek a pardon from the victim's family.

Tomy Thomas, Priya's husband who works with a private firm in Coimbatore, said the Centre's intervention was the only chance of making headway with local tribal leaders and the victim's family. "Unlike other countries, India doesn't have a diplomatic presence in Yemen (due to the ongoing civil war). The delays in talks with the victim's family and the local political leadership is primarily due to the Indian government's absence there," he said.