Fifty-seven-year-old Prema Kumari met her daughter Nimisha Priya, who is on a death row at the Central prison in Yemen’s capital Sanaa, after 12 years on Wednesday, April 24.
She visited her in jail along with Samuel Jerome Bhaskaran, member of the Save Nimisha Priya international council, who has been working in Yemen for over 24 years. They were accompanied by two officials of the Indian mission in Yemen. In a WhatsApp message shared with the council, Mr. Samuel termed their reunion as an ‘emotional’ moment. They were allowed to stay together for sometime as we went out and brought lunch for both of them, he said.
Thirty-four-year-old Nimisha, a nurse, remains imprisoned for the alleged murder of a Yemeni national in July 2017. The hurdles before Ms. Kumari’s repeated efforts to travel to Yemen were cleared after the Delhi High Court on her plea asked the Centre in December last to relax its 2017 notification, which barred Indian passport holders from travelling to Yemen.
Victim’s family informed
She left for Yemen along with Mr. Samuel from Mumbai airport on April 20. They reached Sanaa on April 23, Tuesday, after travelling from Aden by road. The family members and the leaders of the tribe of the victim have been informed about her visit. She will seek pardon for her daughter by offering ‘blood money’ to the victim’s family.
Ms. Kumari is working as a domestic help for over six years at Kizhakkambalam in Ernakulam district. A native of Kollengode in Palakkad, Nimisha was accused of murdering Yemen national Tabal Abdo Mahdi after she allegedly injected him with sedatives in an attempt to reclaim her passport. It was alleged that an overdose had resulted in his death. The victim was her local partner in a clinic that she had opened in 2014. She was awarded the death penalty by the Yemen’s Supreme Judicial Council, which had dismissed her appeal and upheld the death sentence in November last.
