Indian woman executed in UAE for killing infant

An Indian woman who worked as a domestic helper in Abu Dhabi has been executed after she was convicted for killing her employer’s baby.

Shahzadi Khan was executed last month in Abu Dhabi, according to the Indian government.

Khan’s family has maintained that she was innocent and that the four-month-old died from an incorrect vaccination.

They also alleged that Khan did not get “adequate representation” during her trial. The BBC has contacted the UAE authorities for comment.

Khan, 33, had moved to Abu Dhabi in 2021 to work for an Indian family as a caregiver.

The baby was born the following year. According to Khan’s father, she would often call her family back in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and show them the infant over video calls.

But the calls soon stopped – and the family later learnt that Khan was in jail.

According to Khan’s family, the baby had died on 7 December 2022 and Khan was arrested weeks later. She was sentenced to death by an Abu Dhabi court in July 2023.

Khan last spoke to her family on 13 February from prison, saying that she might be executed the next day.

“She kept crying and said she was put in a separate cell, and that she would not come out alive and that it might be her last call,” her father Shabbir Khan told the BBC.

When Khan’s family did not hear from her after that, they filed a petition with the Delhi High Court, seeking information from the Indian government on whether she had been executed.

In response, the government said they were told that Khan was executed on 15 February.

The family said they felt Khan did not have “adequate representation” which resulted in her receiving the death sentence.

In an interview with the Press Trust of India, her father Shabbir Khan said: “She didn’t get justice. I have tried everywhere, running around since last year. But I didn’t have money to go there [Abu Dhabi] to hire a lawyer.”

In an earlier statement released to BBC Hindi following her conviction, Khan’s employer said that “Shahzadi brutally and intentionally killed my son which is already proven by the United Arab Emirates authorities in the light of all the evidence”.

“Misleading information has been provided to media and other authorities to gain [their] sympathy and shift the focus from the actual crime which she committed.”

In February, the Indian government informed the parliament that a total of 54 Indians were on death row in foreign countries, including 29 in the UAE.

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