It is a second life for these 17 Indians. They were on death row for murder in the United Arab Emirates since 2010, and are now reunited with their dear ones after the payment of Rs. 6 crore (a little over $1 million) blood money to the family of a Pakistani worker for whose murder they were convicted in the Gulf.
The freed convicts, 16 of them from Punjab, returned to a new beginning in India after a settlement between the two sides, which was shepherded by Dubai-based Indian hotelier S.P. Singh Oberoi, who led the campaign and collected money through charity and well-wishers to secure their release.
According to an agency report, the jubilant men, almost all of them in their 30s and employed as workers in the UAE, were almost in tears when they touched down at New Delhi. The blood money (money paid as compensation to the victim’s family) was paid to the family of the Pakistani national Misri Khan who was killed over a fight over illegal liquor business in January 2009. A visit to the Golden Temple in Amritsar in Punjab was the first priority for the released men, one of whom is from Haryana.
The families of 17 released workers are elated to see the end of their long ordeal in the UAE. The convicted Indians had all along maintained that they were not involved in the murder of the Pakistani national and that they had been framed.
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