Five Indians on Death Row in UAE Return Home with Indian NGO’s Help

Five Indians, who were imprisoned in Sharjah for the death of a peer in a group fight, returned to India after serving over six years in jail in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after an NGO paid a part of the blood money on their behalf to the victim’s family. They were released on April 11 and returned to India soon after.

Among the five convicts were four Punjabi men. Dharmendra, Harwinder Singh, Ranjit Ram, Dalwinder Singh and Sucha Singh had been sentenced to death for the murder of Virendra Chauhan, 38, of Shekhanura village under Azamgarh district of Uttar Pradesh on Nov.4. The fight took place in Sharjah over a feud over bootlegging.

The five convicts were awarded death by gunshot and a jail term of three years each, but Surinder Pal Singh Oberoi, an Indian hotelier in Dubai, who runs an India-based charitable trust–Sarbat Da Bhala Charitable Trust–petitioned in the Sharjah court for the five convicts. He requested that his NGO be given a chance to save the lives of the five by offering blood money to the victim’s family. The court had ordered a stay on the execution following that.

Since they had already undergone six years of imprisonment as against the three years jail term given to them for the crime, the court ruled that they should be released on April 11, after receiving pardon from the victim’s family. They have now been reunited with their families in India, reported Times of India.

Oberoi spoke to the victim’s family in August 2017 and convinced them to pardon the five men. They accepted a blood money of Rs 21 lakh. The concept of blood money is in accordance to prevalent laws in the UAE.

“I wanted them to feel guilty for indulging in the fight and work hard to repay their families. So, I gave them only the amount that their families were falling short of,” Oberoi said Gulf News reported. An amount of Rs 13 lakh was paid by the families of the convicts.

The Indian Consulate in Dubai provided emergency exit papers and flight tickets for three of them while two others received flight tickets from the companies where they worked before the case, said Oberoi. The five convicts can no longer enter the UAE.

Oberoi, who regularly helps convicts with raising blood money said that he does not support or pay blood money for prisoners convicted of intentional murder, drug peddling, rape and other heinous crimes, as per the report. He has helped a total of 93 people be released from jails in the UAE.

In a recent incident, two Indians from Goa were sentenced to 517 years each in prison by a Dubai court on April 8 for fleecing $200 million from 7,000 residents of the UAE.