Four Telangana men returned home after facing 18 years in a Dubai jail on Wednesday, February 21, for their involvement in a murder case. A Dubai court had sentenced five workers to 25 years in jail for killing Bahadur Singh, a watchman from Nepal.
Four of the five men were received at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad. Two workers, Shivarathri Mallesh and his brother Ravi, hailing from Rajanna Sircilla district were received by their family members.
Another convict, Dundugula Laxman had returned two months ago while Shivarathri Hanmanthu came back two days ago. The fifth person Venkatesh is likely to be released from jail next month.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) government had approved their mercy petition after an appeal by then state minister KT Rama Rao (KTR) during his visit to Dubai in September, 2023. Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president KTR arranged flight tickets for the workers to return.
They were all lodged in Aweer Jail in Dubai. KTR had personally visited Nepal in 2011 to meet the deceased victim’s family members to hand over Rs 15 lakhs as compensation or ‘Diyyah’ (blood money) as per Sharia Law.
The victim’s family submitted the mercy petition documents to the UAE government. However, due to some reasons and the gravity of the crime, the UAE government didn’t approve the mercy petition.
KTR through the Indian Consul General in Dubai, the Arab lawyer who is handling the case, and other government officials kept enquiring about the status of the case.
During his previous visit to Dubai in September 2023, he requested the UAE government to approve the mercy petition considering that the five NRIs had already spent a long time in jail and also hold a good conduct certificate from the jail authorities.