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Two Indian nationals who were on death row have been executed in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the foreign ministry said, just days after a 33-year-old woman was subjected to capital punishment.
The Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi said Muhammed Rinash Arangilottu and Muraleedharan Perumthatta Valappil from the southern state of Kerala had their death sentences carried out after they were upheld in the court.
The two nationals were convicted for separate murders in the UAE and executed on 28 February.
It comes as the family of Shahzadi Khan, 33, expressed shock after she was executed on 15 February in Abu Dhabi for the murder of a four-month-old child where she worked as a caregiver. The family of Khan has alleged that they had no prior information about her execution and the foreign ministry said the UAE only informed them on 28 February.
On the eve of her execution on 14 February, Khan made a last call to her family as her dying wish and informed them about her execution. On 20 February her father filed an application to foreign ministry to seek an update on the legal status of her case.
Arangilottu, who was from the Kannur district, was convicted of the murder of an Emirati national. He worked in a travel agency in Al Ain city before his arrest.
Arangilottu’s mother reportedly submitted a plea to Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan to intervene in the case, claiming that her son accidentally committed murder as he tried to escape a mentally challenged man who was torturing him.
Valappil was sentenced for killing an Indian national in UAE.
The foreign ministry said the Indian embassy in UAE provided all possible consular and legal support to the Indian nationals, including sending mercy petitions and pardon requests to the UAE government.
“The families of the concerned have been informed. The embassy is in touch with them and facilitating their participation in the last rites,” the foreign ministry said.
The UAE has the highest number of Indians facing the death penalty abroad.
Before Khan’s death, 29 Indians were facing death sentences in the UAE, Kirti Vardhan Singh, minister of state for external affairs, had informed parliament on 13 February.
As many as 12 were on death row in Saudi Arabia, three in Kuwait and one in Qatar, she said.
In a similar case, an Indian-origin nurse, Nimisha Priya, 34, was sentenced to death in war-torn Yemen for the murder of her former business partner and could be executed soon. She has denied the allegations of killing Talal Abdo Mahdi in 2017.
Her family is now trying to race “blood money” – a sum to be paid to the family of the victim – to secure a pardon.