Arjunan Athimuthu, 45, a construction worker from the Thanjavur district in Tamil Nadu, is on death row in Kuwait. But he is set to get a reprieve after his wife managed to convince an influential benefactor to raise the necessary ‘blood money’ to save him.
Athimuthu was sentenced to death last year by the apex court in Kuwait for the crime of killing Abdul Wajid, a labourer from Kerala’s Malappuram district. Both Athimuthu and Wajid worked for the same company in Kuwait. Wajid was reportedly killed in September 2013 during a fight between the two.
Kuwaiti law offers the convict a reprieve from capital punishment if the victim’s family pardons him. Wajid’s family demanded ₹30 lakh as ‘blood money’ to pardon Athimuthu.
The convict’s family and the victim’s kin are both poor. But a win-win situation has emerged for both the parties, wherein the convict’s life could be saved, and the victim’s family gets a handy compensation.
Unable to raise the funds needed to save her husband, Athimuthu’s wife, Malathi, on Tuesday approached a young member of the Kodappanakkal Sayed Shihab family in Panakkad, near Malappuram, and sought his help.
Sayed Munawwarali Shihab Thangal, the younger son of former Indian Union Muslim League chief Sayed Mohammedali Shihab Thangal, worked his contacts and managed to raise much of the ₹30 lakh in a matter of hours. “We have raised almost the entire amount needed to save a precious human life,” he told The Hindu .
“We are saving two families, in fact. We had to seek the help of philanthropists around,” Mr. Munawwarali said. “The victim’s family is also poor. They too don’t have a house. Their demand for ₹30 lakh compensation would appear just from their perspective.”
Mr. Munwwarali said he would hand over the blood money to the victim’s family on Monday. “We are doing it through legal channels. We want to save Athimuthu from the gallows.”
