Prisoners in foreign land

When Nimisha Priya travelled to Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, in 2008, she thought her training as a nurse would help her not only land a good job in the West Asian nation but also set her family at Palakkad in Kerala free from day-to-day economic hardship. She married Tomy Thomas of Idukki in 2011 and returned to Sana’a, where the couple had a daughter. Her dreams were shattered in 2017 when she was accused of killing her Yemeni business partner Talal Abdu Mahdi in a desperate bid to retrieve her passport which was in his possession. She was sentenced to death in 2018 by a court in Yemen. The head of the ruling dispensation in the conflict-ridden country has approved her death warrant recently.

Nimisha, 36, is now incarcerated in a jail in Sana’a, pinning her hope on her mother’s negotiation with the family of Mahdi on ‘blood money’ – a monetary compensation to be paid to get the pardon from the slain man’s clan.

Abdul Rahim, who is also from Kozhikode in Kerala, was sentenced to death in 2006 for allegedly killing the 15-year-old son of his employer in Saudi Arabia. The victim’s parents granted the family’s old driver pardon after receiving ‘blood money’ of Rs 34 crore. But Abdul continues to be incarcerated in Saudi Arabia jail, where he spent the last 18 years of his life.

The Ministry of External Affairs in July 2019 informed the Lok Sabha that 44 Indians were on death row in Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and they included five who had been convicted of offences related to drug trafficking. The ministry again informed the Rajya Sabha in August 2024 that while altogether 9,728 Indians were in prisons in foreign countries, mostly in West Asia, 125 of them were either sentenced to death or life imprisonment in the last 10 years.

“A significant number of Indians remain imprisoned in foreign countries, often due to criminal cases arising from labour disputes,” said advocate Femin Panikkassery, who provided legal assistance to Indians in the United Arab Emirates.

Citing the case of Nimisha Priya, Panikkassery said early intervention could have changed the outcome. "The incident reportedly stemmed from a dispute over the alleged withheld documents. If support had been available at the outset, this tragic situation could have been avoided. Unfortunately, no help was provided, and now the only option is to plead for mercy by offering to pay blood money,” he said.

While ignorance about the law is widely considered as the reason why many Indians land in foreign jails, the story of Abdul Khader Puthiyangadi from Kerala's Kasargod is different.

Puthiyangadi was jailed in Dubai from 2021 to 2023 for blasphemy.

"I knew that what I was doing could invite legal action. But I wanted to take forward my campaigns and had to undergo 686 days in prison. It was Malayalis who complained against me," says Puthiyangadi, who was working in the IT sector in Dubai.

Puthiyangadi has penned a book titled “Allahuvinte Tadavarayila 686 Dinaratrangal” or (686 days and nights in Allah's prison). It recollects that in the prison he could meet many Indians who were involved in criminal activities like job frauds and even flesh trade using women trapped in job frauds.

It is mostly Indians themselves who put Indians into trouble by illegal recruitment, rather human trafficking. The latest instance is illegal recruitment of Indians to the Russian Army.

A L Naushad, a 52-year-old autorickshaw driver from Kollam in Kerala, had got into a scuffle with a Saudi Arabian man while working in a petrol pump in the kingdom in 2003. The Saudi man lost his eyes. A court then ordered that one of Naushad’s eyes would be gouged out. “But for the interventions of the Indian government and pardon given by the Saudi king, I would have been now partially blind,” Naushad, who has returned to his hometown, told DH.

Kochi native Lakshmi, one of the victims of overseas job fraud, narrates weeks long harrowing experience that a group of six from Kerala had to undergo after being cheated by a Malayali agent offering jobs in a sugar factory in Athens a few years back.

"It was after reaching Serbia that we came to know that our travel documents were fake. We, a group of three males and three females, were then taken by unknown foreign nationals through various remote regions and forest areas for nearly 20 days. We had to spend many nights in dense forests and walk kilometres. To avert sexual harassment, we acted as couples, which even collapsed my family life," tells Lakshm

Finally she got in touch with advocate Panikkassery, who used to work for PBSK and PLAC. She subsequently got in touch with the International Organization for Migration and managed to return, says Lakhsmi who is now running a self employment unit at her native place Muvatupuzha near Kochi. .

Panikkassery said that during his recent visits to Canada and the USA, he noticed a significant lack of assistance for Indians, especially students grappling with issues related to study permits and work permit extensions,

Ensuring proper legal awareness to emigrants on the law of host countries and setting up robust legal assistance facilities like the PBSK in all countries with high numbers of Indian diaspora are remedial measures for these issues, he suggests..

The Kerala government set up Pravasi Legal Aid Cells (PLACs) to provide legal assistance to people of the state landing in trouble in foreign countries. The MEA also set up the Pravasi Bharatiya Sahayata Kendra (PBSK).

“We have set up the Pravasi Legal Aid Cells (PLACs) in seven Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and plan to expand it to more countries. It has been effective in extending legal assistance to hundreds,” said Ajith Kolassery, Chief Executive Officer of NORKA Roots – an agency of the Kerala government for the welfare of the NRIs from the state.

“The state governments obviously have limitations in intervening in issues in foreign countries as it is for the centre to do. Compared to the huge population of NRIs in many countries, especially Gulf countries, the staff strength of Indian mission offices are really inadequate to handle the issues. Even then the missions are very cooperative in responding to the distress call. However, when it comes to criminal cases, there are limitations in extending assistance,” he added.