An Indian who worked as a domestic aid to the United Arab Emirates was executed after being convicted of having killed her employer’s baby.
Shahzadi Khan, who worked for an Indian couple, was executed last month, according to the Indian government.
According to court documents from Abu Dhabi, Khan asphyxiated the boy, but a doctor who testified during the trial could not confirm it because he had not been authorized to perform a post-mortem.
Khan’s family maintains that she was innocent and said that the four -month -old woman died of an incorrect vaccination on the day of her death. They said Khan had not had “adequate representation” during his trial. The BBC contacted the water authorities to comment.
The execution was carried out on February 15, but the news was only confirmed by the Indian authorities on March 3 after Khan’s parents interrupted Delhi’s High Court to request information about their daughter.
The secret surrounding execution made the headlines in India, which has close ties with the United Arab Emirates. Hundreds of thousands of Indians live and work in the country.
According to the petition deposited by the Khan family, she had moved to Abu Dhabi in December 2021 to work for the Indian family as a caregiver.
She was responsible for taking care of the baby, born in August the following year. According to Khan’s father, she often recalled her family in the state of Northern India of Uttar Pradesh and showed them the baby on video calls.
But the calls stopped after his death – and the family learned later that Khan was in prison. According to Khan’s family, the baby died on December 7, 2022, just a few hours after receiving a vaccine.
Police arrested Khan two months later. She insisted that a video recording showing that she admits having killed the baby had been forced and that she had not received appropriate legal support in court.
She was sentenced to death in July 2023. Her appeal was rejected in February 2024.
Khan’s family said they had heard the last time on February 13 of this year when she called prison, saying that she could be executed the next day.
“She continued to cry and said that she had been placed in a separate cell, and that she would not come out alive and that it could be her last call,” her father Shabbir Khan told the BBC.
When Khan’s family did not hear about it after that, they deposited a petition with the High Court of Delhi, asking for information from the Indian government to find out if they had been executed.
Khan’s family said they thought they had no “adequate representation”, which led her to death sentence.
In an interview with the Press Trust of India, her father Shabbir Khan said: “She did not have justice. I tried everywhere, running since last year. But I had no money to go (Abu Dhabi) to hire a lawyer.”
In a previous statement published at the BBC Hindi following his conviction, Khan’s employer said: “Shahzadi brutally and intentionally killed my son who is already proven by the United Arab authorities in light of all evidence.
“Deceived information has been provided to the media and other authorities to (their) sympathy and move the attention of the real crime she has committed.”
In February, the Indian government informed the Parliament that a total of 54 Indians were in the death corridor in foreign countries, including 29 in the water.
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