India is engaged in efforts to prevent the execution of Nimisha Priya, an Indian nurse convicted in a murder case in Yemen whose death sentence is set to be carried out on July 16, news agency PTI said quoting people familiar with the matter.
Priya, hailing from Kollengode in Kerala's Palakkad district, was found guilty of murdering a Yemeni man Talal Abdo Mehdi in July 2017. He was her business partner.
Priya and Mehdi ran a clinic jointly in Yemen's capital city, Sanaa.
In 2020, a Yemeni court handed her the death sentence, and the country's Supreme Judicial Council dismissed her appeal in November 2023.
The 38-year-old nurse is presently lodged in a jail in Sana'a, the Yemeni capital city that is under the control of Iran-backed Houthis.
"We have been closely following the matter since then. We have been in regular touch with local authorities and her family members and rendered all possible assistance," a government source told PTI.
"We continue to closely follow the matter," it said.
New Delhi is engaged in efforts to prevent the execution that has been scheduled for July 16, the source said.
There are certain complicacies in the case as the Indian side has no formal contacts with the Houthi rebels. Priya's mother Premakumari travelled to Yemen last year as part of efforts to secure her release.
The Indian side had even explored the option of securing Priya's release through "diyat" or paying "blood money". But that also ran into some problems, it is learnt.
(With PTI inputs)
