Husband of murder accused Kerala nurse desperate to raise Rs 70 lakh blood money
KOCHI: Every day, the 7-year-old daughter of Tomy Thomas asks, “When will my mother come?”And Tomy, a Thodupuzha native, gives a routine reply: “Soon”. Since December 2019, 43-year-old Tomy has been knocking on the doors of many seeking support to raise blood money of Rs 70 lakh for the release of his 30-year-old wife Nimisha Priya who has been awarded death penalty by a court in Yemen in connection with the murder of a Yemeni citizen identified as Talal Abdu Mahdi.
“I don’t know for how long I can keep convincing my daughter that her mother will come to see her soon. We never expected the court to deliver such a verdict as talks on a possible pardon after giving blood money have been on for quite some time. We couldn’t give a statement to the court because we have no idea from where we can raise such a huge amount,” Tomy, who drives an autorickshaw to eke out a living these days, told TNIE.
The case of Nimisha, a Malayali nurse in Yemen, is not new to Keralites as she has been in the news since her murder trial began in 2017.
“She hasn’t hid anything from me. It was our collective decision to start a clinic after I, along with our child, returned home on April 20, 2014. I had raised around Rs 35 lakh from various sources to help her start the clinic,” Tomy said.
They have decided to go for an appeal against the lower court order sentencing her to death, he said.
Nimisha, who belongs to Palakkad, was found guilty of murdering Mahdi in 2017 and disposing his body in a water tank at her house after chopping the body into pieces.
‘Nimisha was physically tortured by Yemen nat’l’
According to Tomy, Nimisha was a victim of physical torture and death threats at the hands of the Yemen national whom she befriended after he promised to be a sponsor for getting a licence to start a clinic in Yemen.
“We are looking at all legal options and seeking the support of the Indian Embassy to go for an appeal after the court in Sanaa pronounced the judgment,” he said, adding both he and their daughter have not seen Nimisha since February 2015.
“She was here on a vacation in January 2015 and returned to Yemen on February 9, 2015. We had decided to join her by March that year. We couldn’t get our visas processed because of a civil war which broke out in March in that country,” Tomy said.
He said Mahdi started showing his true nature after Nimisha launched the clinic with good initial returns. “He even made a fabricated document showing that Nimisha was his wife. Though Nimisha approached him for help to start the clinic, it was the owner of the clinic where she worked earlier who helped her.
His name was Abdul Lateef and the licence for the clinic was in his name. Mahdi made a lot of false accusations against my wife and started threatening her. She had even lodged a couple of complaints against Mahdi with the Yemen police,” he said.
Tomy says life has been cruel to him and the most torturous moments are the ones when someone mocks at him saying that he had become an autorickshaw driver to fool people.
“I am striving hard and the pandemic has affected my income. I haven’t told my child about her mother’s issue. I am praying to God to help me bring my wife back to my daughter,” he added.