New Delhi, July 14: The Supreme Court is slated to hear on Monday a plea seeking directions to the Centre to use diplomatic channels to save Kerala nurse Nimisha Priya from execution.

Indian national Nimisha Priya, who has been sentenced to death in Yemen for the murder of a Yemeni national, Talal Abdo Mehd and has been in prison for the last three years, is tentatively set to be executed on July 16.

As per the causelist published on the website of the apex court, a Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta will take up the plea filed by “Save Nimisha Priya Action Council” for hearing on July 14.

The plea, referring to Sharia law, stated that the death penalty could be negotiated with the payment of ‘diya (blood money)’ to the victim’s family.

On Thursday, a ‘Partial Court Working Days Bench’ of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi directed listing of the matter on July 14 after it was mentioned for urgent hearing by senior advocate Ragenth Basant.

The Justice Dhulia-led Bench directed that a copy of the petition be served to the Attorney General of India, the highest law officer of the Centre.

Considering the nature and urgency of the matter, the top court asked the Union government to inform it about the steps taken in the case on the date fixed.

Nimisha Priya, a nurse from Kollengode in Kerala’s Palakkad district, had moved to Yemen in 2008 to support her daily-wage labourer parents. She worked in several hospitals and eventually decided to open her own clinic.

In 2017, a dispute arose between her and her Yemeni business partner, Talal Abdo Mahdi, after she reportedly opposed his alleged attempts to misappropriate funds.

According to her family, Nimisha allegedly injected Mahdi with sedatives to retrieve her confiscated passport. Tragically, an overdose led to his death. She was arrested while attempting to flee the country and was convicted of murder in 2018. In 2020, a trial court in Sanaa sentenced her to death, and Yemen’s Supreme Judicial Council upheld the verdict in November 2023, though it left open the option of blood money.

The mother of Priya, Prema Kumari (57), has been tirelessly campaigning to secure a waiver of the death penalty. She has also travelled to Sanaa to negotiate the payment of blood money to the victim’s family. Her efforts have been supported by the Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council, a group of NRI social workers based in Yemen.

Chandigarh, Jul 13: Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Sunday announced that modern sports grounds will be developed in villages across the state to wean youth away from drugs and channelise their energy in a positive direction.

“We have decided to develop these grounds. The work on 3,083 grounds is going to start and a total of 4,000 grounds will be developed in the first phase,” he said during a press conference here.

He said athletes who won medals in international competitions will also be involved in coaching to promote a sporting culture among the youth.

New Delhi, Jul 13: The self-immolation of a 20-year-old undergraduate student at Fakir Mohan University, Balasore, after allegedly facing prolonged sexual harassment, has triggered a political storm in Odisha, with mounting public anger and sharp criticism from opposition leaders. The incident, reported by The Hindu, has put the state government under severe pressure to act.

The student, who sustained 90% burn injuries after setting herself on fire outside the principal’s chamber on Saturday (July 12), remains in critical condition and is currently on a ventilator at AIIMS Bhubaneswar. State Health Minister Mukesh Mahaling and Higher Education Minister Suryabanshi Suraj have visited the hospital to monitor her condition, reports The Hindu.

According to The Hindu, the young woman had accused Assistant Professor Samir Kumar Sahu, head of the Education Department, of repeatedly seeking sexual favours and threatening to ruin her academic career if she did not comply. Despite multiple complaints, including a desperate social media appeal on July 1 tagging senior officials, no substantive action was taken.

She reportedly informed the college principal in writing about a previous suicide attempt. Disturbing footage showing the moment of the immolation and students rushing to save her has since gone viral, fuelling further outrage.

The accused professor has been arrested, and the university principal, Dilip Ghosh, has been suspended. However, the measures have not quelled public anger or political backlash.
Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi, upon returning from New Delhi, visited AIIMS Bhubaneswar alongside Deputy Chief Minister Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo. He assured strict action based on the findings of the inquiry. “We will take all possible steps to prevent recurrence of such incidents,” Majhi said.

Meanwhile, opposition parties, including the Congress and BJD, have intensified their protests, with party leaders meeting the victim’s family and attempting to march to the residences of the CM and Higher Education Minister. A scuffle broke out between protestors and police during the march. The National Commission for Women (NCW) has taken suo motu cognisance of the case.

This is the second such incident this year in Odisha involving alleged administrative inaction in a campus sexual harassment case. Earlier, a Nepalese student in a private university died by suicide after her repeated complaints against a male classmate were reportedly ignored.

The self-immolation incident has now become a flashpoint in Odisha’s political and social discourse, raising urgent questions about campus safety, institutional accountability, and the state’s handling of gender-based complaints.