Death row convict thanks Chandy for saving his life

IANS/Thiruvananthapuram

It was a homecoming 32-year-old Simil Sasi could only have dreamt of. Saved from the gallows in Kuwait and back home in Kerala, Sasi met Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Wednesday and thanked him for saving his life.

When Chandy was told that Sasi was waiting in his house, he cut short his meetings on Wednesday evening to return home. Sasi ran to the chief minister and embraced him, with tears rolling down his cheeks.

“Without your efforts, I might have died long ago,” Sasi told the chief minister.

Sasi was condemned to death in Kuwait for accidentally stabbing to death Suresh, a colleague from Andhra Pradesh, at his workplace in 2008.

The two got into a scuffle over a cricket match on November 21, 2007, and the stabbing occurred during the scuffle. Sasi was then 26.

The Kuwait court ruled that only if the dead man’s wife pardoned him would Sasi be saved from the gallows.

Chandy, the then leader of the opposition, was told that unless a monetary compensation was made to the widow of the dead man, Sasi might be hanged.

Chandy got in touch with friends in Kuwait and raised Rs1mn; Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, who was at the time the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, chipped in with Rs500,000.

The money was handed over to the widow of the man Sasi stabbed, who pardoned him.

Although he was saved from the gallows in April 2008, he still had to serve out a jail sentence, which only ended early this month.

He returned to his family in Alappuzha last week.

Chandy’s wife distributed sweets on the occasion.

Among those present at the chief minister’s residence on Wednesday was Sasi’s mother.

The chief minister welcomed the young man back and advised him to put the past behind him to make a fresh start.