New Delhi: Two Indian men were executed in the UAE on murder charges, the Ministry of External Affairs was informed on February 28, the same day it said it was told about Shahzadi Khan’s execution for allegedly killing an infant.
Meanwhile, 33-year-old Khan was buried on Thursday (March 6), the MEA’s external publicity division announced.
The two men who were executed were identified as Muhammed Rinash Arangilottu and Muraleedharan Perumthatta Valappil.
Arangilottu was convicted for murdering an Emirati citizen and Valappil for killing an Indian. The UAE’s highest court, its Court of Cassation, upheld their death sentences, the MEA said.
It is not known on what day the two were executed.
India’s embassy in the UAE, said the MEA, “provided all possible consular and legal assistance, including sending mercy petitions and pardon requests”.
Arangilottu was buried on Thursday after his family members paid their last respects and participated in prayers.
Their executions were first reported in the Malayalam press.
Khan was buried in Abu Dhabi on Thursday, before which “authorised representatives” of her family paid their respects and attended funerary prayers, the MEA said.
Her father Shabbir Khan said on Wednesday that her burial was delayed and that their family learned of it from “distant relatives who live in Abu Dhabi”. “There has been no communication from the MEA,” he was quoted as alleging by The Hindu.
When submitting in court earlier this week that Khan had been executed, the Union government said her last rites were scheduled to take place on Wednesday.
Following Khan’s father approaching the Delhi high court seeking information about her status after she was arrested in February 2023 for allegedly murdering a four-month-old child, the government on March 3 said she was executed on February 15.
Later, the MEA’s external publicity division confirmed that Emirati officials on February 28 informed the Indian embassy that Khan had been executed.
Why there was a 13-day delay in the Indian government’s receiving an intimation of Khan’s execution is unclear.
Even as there was a report on February 16 describing a final phone call Khan had had with her father two days prior, official sources were cited in the press as saying on February 17 – two days after her execution – that the report was “incorrect”.
A resident of Uttar Pradesh, Khan had travelled to the UAE in 2021 and was employed as a caregiver to a newborn in August 2022. On December 7, 2022, the infant received routine vaccinations and passed away that evening.
The government’s counsel said in the Delhi high court on Monday: “We did our best. We hired a law firm there to represent her in court. But the laws there deal with the murder of an infant very severely.”
Two days before Khan was executed, Union minister of state for external affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh said in parliament that a total of 29 Indian nations were on death row in the UAE.
Twelve were on death row in Saudi Arabia, three in Kuwait and one in Qatar, his answer also said.
