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An Indian woman who worked as a domestic helper in the United Arab Emirates has been executed after she was convicted of killing her employers’ baby.<\/p>\n
Shahzadi Khan, who worked for an Indian couple, was executed last month, according to the Indian government.<\/p>\n
According to Abu Dhabi court documents, Khan asphyxiated the boy<\/a>, but a doctor who testified at the trial could not confirm this as he had not been allowed to perform a post-mortem.<\/p>\n Khan’s family maintain she was innocent and say the four-month-old died from an incorrect vaccination on the day of his death. They said Khan did not get “adequate representation” during her trial. The BBC contacted UAE authorities for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The execution was carried out on 15 February, but the news was only confirmed by Indian authorities on 3 March after Khan’s parents petitioned the Delhi High Court seeking information about their daughter.<\/p>\n The secrecy surrounding the execution has made headlines in India, which has close ties with United Arab Emirates. Hundreds of thousands of Indians live and work in the country. <\/p>\n According to the petition filed by Khan’s family, she had moved to Abu Dhabi in December 2021 to work for the Indian family as a caregiver.<\/p>\n She was entrusted to look after the baby, who was born in August the following year. <\/b>According to Khan’s father, she would often call her family back in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and show them the baby over video calls.<\/p>\n But the calls stopped after his death – and the family later learnt that Khan was in jail. According to Khan’s family, the baby died on 7 December 2022, just hours after he received a vaccine. <\/p>\n Police arrested Khan two months later. She insisted that a video recording showing her confessing to killing the baby had been forced, and that she had not received proper legal support in court.<\/p>\n She was sentenced to death in July 2023. Her appeal was rejected in February 2024.<\/p>\n Khan’s family said they last heard from her on 13 February this year when she called from prison, saying that she might be executed the next day.<\/p>\n “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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Khan’s family said they felt she did not have “adequate representation” which resulted in her receiving the death sentence.<\/p>\n 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.”<\/p>\n In an earlier statement released to BBC Hindi following her conviction, Khan’s employer said: “Shahzadi brutally and intentionally killed my son which is already proven by the United Arab Emirates authorities in the light of all the evidence.<\/p>\n “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.”<\/p>\n In February, the Indian government informed parliament that a total of 54 Indians were on death row in foreign countries, including 29 in the UAE.<\/p>\n Follow BBC News India on <\/i>Instagram<\/i><\/a>, <\/i>YouTube<\/i><\/a>, <\/i>Twitter<\/i><\/a> and <\/i>Facebook<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n