'My heart is breaking,' says Nimisha Priya’s mother as she begins journey to Yemen

Kochi: “My heart is breaking, but there is some peace from within. It’s been a long time and we struggled a lot, but at least now I can go,” said Premakumari when asked about her travel to see her daughter, Nimisha Priya, who has been sentenced to death and is languishing in a prison in Yemen.

Premakumari, along with Samuel Jerome, a member of the Save Nimishipriya International Action Council, is departing from Kochi on Saturday morning. They will arrive in Mumbai and then depart for Aden via a Yemenia Airways flight at 5 pm. Notably, this is not a regular passenger flight, as there is a restriction on travel to Yemen from India due to the civil war there. This flight primarily transports Yemeni citizens for medical treatment and other purposes, and passengers like Premakumari and Jerome will only be able to travel when the flight returns to Yemen.

Advocate Subhash Chandran, who filed a case in the Delhi High Court on behalf of Nimisha Priya’s mother, seeking permission to visit Yemen, given the travel ban for Indians except for unavoidable reasons, stated that the travel was delayed even after one and a half months after obtaining the visa because of this. The Delhi High Court has granted permission for Premakumari to go to Yemen.

A day or two after arriving in Aden, which is under the control of the Yemeni government, Premakumari and Jerome will travel to Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, which is 400 kilometres away and under the control of the rebels. Nimisha Priya is lodged in the jail there. Their primary objective upon reaching Sanaa is to meet Nimisha Priya. Subsequently, they plan to meet with the family and tribal leaders of the deceased Yemeni citizen. They are considering seeking pardon from the family of the deceased, along with the Yemeni people in general, and pleading for Nimisha Priya’s release.

If the family accepts her apology and the blood money, the path to Nimisha Priya’s release will be clearer. Samuel Jerome had previously stated that discussions are ongoing in this regard. Due to the ongoing civil war in Yemen, India does not have official diplomatic relations with the current regime. Consequently, the Indian embassy operates in Djibouti. Both the embassy and the Save Nimisha Priya Action Council are leading the negotiations in Yemen.

In 2017, Nimisha Priya was sentenced to death for the murder of Yemeni national Talal Abdo Mahdi. She reached Yemen to work as a nurse with her husband. During her time there, Nimisha Priya became acquainted with Abdo Mahdi while working at a clinic. They later planned to establish a health clinic together, and Nimisha Priya and her husband entrusted all their savings to Abdo Mahdi. Initially polite and gentle, Abdo Mahdi allegedly began spreading rumours that Nimisha Priya was his wife and eventually coerced her into marriage after threatening her.

Subsequently, Nimisha Priya alleges that she endured severe mental and physical abuse, including the confiscation of her passport. She claims that her life was threatened, prompting her to escape with her passport after injecting Abdo Mahdi with sedative drugs. However, Abdo Mahdi’s dismembered body was later discovered in a tank above the house where the couple resided. Despite Nimisha Priya’s assertion of innocence and lack of knowledge regarding the murder, the trial court convicted her. Despite appealing to higher courts, including the Supreme Court, her appeals were rejected, and the death sentence was upheld.