In a significant development, Yemen has postponed the execution of Indian nurse Nimisha Priya, who was earlier scheduled to be hanged on July 16, according to media reports citing sources.
What is the Nimisha Priya case?
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Nimisha Priya is a nurse from Kerala, India, who went to Yemen for work.
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In 2015, she started a clinic in Yemen with a local man named Talal Abdo Mahdi, because only Yemenis can officially register businesses there.
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Their partnership turned abusive — Mahdi allegedly beat, abused, and blackmailed her, even made fake marriage photos.
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Nimisha filed complaints, and Mahdi was jailed multiple times.
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In 2017, she visited him in jail to get her passport back. A jail official allegedly advised her to sedate him to get it.
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She gave him an injection, but Mahdi died due to overdose.
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Yemeni courts saw this as murder, and she was sentenced to death.
Indian Officials Intervene
According to news agency ANI, Indian officials have been in continuous contact with the jail authorities and the prosecutor’s office in Yemen, which helped secure this postponement.
However, during a hearing on Monday, the Government of India told the Supreme Court that its diplomatic influence is limited in Yemen, due to the country not being formally recognized diplomatically by India.
“There’s a point till which the Government of India can go,” said Attorney General R. Venkataramani, citing the sensitive and complex diplomatic ties with Yemen. He clarified that ‘blood money’ negotiations — a form of legal settlement under Islamic law — are a private matter between families and cannot be directly managed by governments.
Supreme Court Hearing
The top court was hearing a petition filed by ‘Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council’, urging the Centre to step in and help negotiate blood money to save her life. The bench of Justices Vikram Seth and Sandeep Mehta heard the plea.
While the execution has been delayed, her fate now depends on the possibility of raising and paying ‘blood money’ to the victim’s family, a path available under Yemeni Shariah law.
The case continues to draw attention across India and the diaspora, as efforts to save Nimisha Priya’s life remain urgent but diplomatically constrained.
