
An amount of Rs 34 crore was crowdfunded by Keralites as ‘blood money’ to enable the release of a man from the state on death row in Saudi Arabia.
The amount was collected on April 12, according to a report by The Indian Express.
Abdul Rahim, a Kozhikode native, has been lodged in prison for the last 18 years after a 15-year-old boy on a life support system died in his care while being driven in a car by Rahim.
The incident took place in 2006 and a court in Saudi Arabia sentenced Rahim to death in 2018. The judgement was upheld by the country’s top court. Last year, the victim’s family agreed to pardon Rahimin in exchange for Rs 34 crore in blood money. Mediators had fixed April 16 as the deadline to pay the amount and save Rahim from execution.
The plea to save Rahim went viral on social media, and several celebrities, politicians, and NRI groups joined the drive, which managed to raise only Rs 5 crore till last week.
In a Facebook post on April 12, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan hailed the crowdfunding efforts. “Keralites across the world have united to mobilise Rs 34 crore for the release of Abdul Rahim, who is facing death sentence in Saudi Arabia. To save a life, to wipe the tears of a family, Kerala has created a noble example of love. It is a declaration that Kerala is a fortress of brotherhood, which communalism cannot destroy,” he wrote.
Rahim had gone to Saudi Arabia in 2006 to work as a driver for a family. He was 26 years old at the time. The family then assigned him to look after their paralyzed son, a 15-year-old boy who needed the support of an apparatus to breathe. On December 24, 2006, while Rahim was driving a car with the boy in the backseat, the life support system came off, leading to the boy’s death. This happened just 28 days after Rahim reached the country. He has been in jail since then.