Congress leader K.C. Venugopal. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
Congress general secretary (Organisation) K.C. Venugopal has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene with Yemeni authorities and save Indian nurse Nimisha Priya, who has been sentenced to be executed in Yemen.
“The death sentence against Nimisha Priya is a grave travesty of justice. She is a victim of unimaginable cruelty and domestic abuse on foreign soil, driven to the brink. She doesn’t deserve to die. I’ve written to the PM seeking urgent intervention to prevent her execution,” Mr. Venugopal said in a post on X on Saturday.
Ms. Priya, who hails from Kollengode in Palakkad district of Kerala, was convicted in 2020 for the murder of her Yemeni business partner in July 2017.
In his letter dated July 10 to the Prime Minister, Mr. Venugopal said, “While efforts have been made by the Action Council and her family to negotiate with the victim’s family to accept ‘blood money’ (diyah), which could potentially spare her life, these negotiations have faced significant challenges, due to ongoing civil war and other internal disturbances.”
He urged the Prime Minister to intervene with “utmost priority imploring all possible diplomatic measures with the Yemeni authorities” to get the nurse off death row.
Last November, Yemen’s Supreme Judicial Council rejected her appeal, and the country’s public prosecutor ordered that her sentence be carried out on July 16.
Communist Party of India Rajya Sabha MP P. Sandosh Kumar, on Thursday, had written to External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, urging him to use “every possible diplomatic and humanitarian channel” to secure a stay on the nurse’s execution.
Ms. Priya is currently being held in Sana’a Central Prison.
Published – July 12, 2025 08:04 pm IST
