17 Indian men spared death sentence

Sharjah:Seventeen Indian men, who were spared death sentence in a Sharjah murder case, flew back home last night after a legal battle that lasted for four years. The men, whose case was taken up by the Indian government due to the extraordinary capital punishment pronounced initially, landed in New Delhi earlier this morning, the Indian Consulate in Dubai confirmed. “They will be heading to Punjab by afternoon,” a consulate official said on Tuesday morning. The released men were sentenced to death in March 2010 for killing Pakistani national Misri Nazir Khan during a group fight of bootleggers in Sharjah’s Al Sajja Industrial Area in January 2009. Their capital punishment was revoked in September 2011 after the victim’s family pardoned them following a payment of Dh3.4m blood money. However, their release was delayed as a travel ban was imposed on them when two Pakistani brothers filed a Dh1.5 million compensation suit claiming that they were also injured in the same fight. Mohamed Salman Advocates and Consultants, the firm that was hired by the Indian government to defend their case after all the 17 accused in the case were sentenced to death, represented them in the civil case as well. Advocate Bindu S. Chettur from the firm said on January 17, the court awarded the petitioners Dh100, 000 hearing on merits. “Their release came after the petitioners accepted the compensation and refrained from appealing against the verdict. The travel ban was lifted last week,” she said. Indian hotelier S.P. Singh Oberoi, who helped raise the record blood money and the civil compensation from the Indian community, accompanied the men to their homeland in the midnight flight from Dubai. -Khaleejtimes