UAE keeps India in dark, executes UP woman, informs embassy after 12 days

Shabbir Khan, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Banda, said there was "profound uncertainty" regarding his daughter Shahzadi's situation and his repeated applications to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) for clarification were fruitless.

New Delhi: A woman from Uttar Pradesh has been hanged in a jail in the United Arab Emirates, although the Embassy of India in Abu Dhabi had earlier been informed by the authorities of the West Asian nation that her execution had not been scheduled to take place immediately.

A court in the UAE had convicted her of killing a four-month-old child and had sentenced her to death in July 2023.

Shahzadi, originally a resident of Banda in Uttar Pradesh, was hanged in UAE on February 15 – two days before the sources in New Delhi told media that the Embassy of India in Abu Dhabi had got it confirmed from the authorities of the West Asian nation that the media reports about her imminent execution had been incorrect.

The embassy had also been informed that a review petition had been filed in her case, and the petition had been under consideration. Even two days after Shahzadi had been executed, the Embassy of India in Abu Dhabi continued to follow up on the case and had only come to know about her death on February 28.

The UAE authorities intimated to the embassy on February 28, 2025, that the death sentence awarded to Shahzadi had been “carried out in accordance with local laws”, the XP division of the Ministry of External Affairs stated on Monday. Her family was informed of the matter, it added.

“It is over. She was executed on February 15. Her last rites will be held on March 5,” Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma told the Delhi High Court earlier in the day. He was representing the Government of India during the hearing on a petition filed by Shahzadi’s father, Shabbir Khan, before the court seeking to know if his daughter was still alive or had already been executed.

Shahzadi had called his father and other members of her family on February 14 from Al Wathba prison near Abu Dhabi to inform them that she might be executed within 24 hours. After media outlets reported her father’s appeal to President Draupadi Murmu and the Government of India for immediate intervention, sources in New Delhi said that the reports about her imminent execution were incorrect.

Her father then, on February 21, urged the MEA to confirm if his daughter had been executed or not. He then moved the Delhi High Court.

Shahzadi, who suffered burn injuries on her face in her childhood, was initially working for a couple in Agra. The couple relocated to Abu Dhabi in 2021 and took her along. She was later appointed as a caregiver for the couple’s son, who was born in August 2022. The infant died on December 7, 2022.

The Court of Cassation, the highest court in the UAE, upheld the conviction and sentence awarded by a lower court to Shahzadi. The Embassy of India in Abu Dhabi provided all possible legal assistance to Shahzadi, including sending mercy petitions and pardon requests to the Government of the UAE.