UAE court commutes death sentence of 10 Punjabi murder convicts to prison terms

DUBAI: Ten Indians facing execution in the UAE for murdering a Pakistani man may soon return home as their death sentences were commuted to prison terms after a charity paid the blood money to the family of the victim, a media report said on Friday.

The 10 men, all from Punjab, were sentenced to death in October last year.

According to the verdict on Thursday by the Al Ain court of appeals, the Punjabi youths will now serve jail terms ranging from one to three and a half years, Gulf News reported. Indian charity organisation Sarbat Da Bhala, run by Dubai-based Indian businessman SPS Oberoi, had paid blood money as compensation to victim Mohammad Farhan’s family and they agreed to pardon the convicts.

According to reports, the 10 men, all in their 20s, are Satminder Singh of Barnala, Chander Shekhar of Hoshiarpur, Harjinder of Mohali, Kulwinder Singh of Ludhiana, Dharamvir Singh of Samrala, Tarsem Singh of Amritsar, Gurpreet Singh of Patiala, Jagjit Singh of Gurdaspur, Chamkaur Singh of Malerkotla and Balwinder Singh of Ludhiana. All the youths are from poor families and were working there as plumbers, electricians, masons and carpenters.

First secretary for community affairs at the Indian Embassy Dinesh Kumar said the verdict is a relief to the accused, who have been in jail since July 2015 and were sentenced to death in October 2016, and their families.

“We are grateful to the courts for this decision and to the victim’s family who agreed to pardon these young men. What transpired in 2015 is indeed unfortunate, but these men hail from poor families that need their support,” he said.

An Indian charity organisation, Sarbat Da Bhala Charitable Trust, has already deposited the blood money in court on behalf of the accused, and this means that five of the men will soon be able to return home, said Oberoi.

The rest will be able to go back home by year-end or early 2018 after serving the remainder of their sentences. The Indians allegedly killed the Pakistani man during a brawl over bootlegging in Al Ain. Eleven men were convicted in the case but one was spared the death sentence. Following the initial verdict, the victim’s father appeared at the Court of Appeals in March 2017 and submitted a letter of consent to pardon the defendants.

“It was a tough task to convince the victim’s family to pardon the accused. The father eventually told me there was no solution to his family’s pain. He said he didn’t want to inflict the same pain to ten Indian families through their son’s death,” Oberoi said. The Indian embassy will soon issue air tickets and out passes for the men who have finished serving their one-and oneand-a-half-year sentences and now face deportation.