Indian woman Shahzadi Khan, who had been on death row in Abu Dhabi for the ‘murder’ of her employer’s baby, was executed on February 15. This was revealed on Monday during a Delhi High Court hearing on her father’s plea about her well-being. Her family was informed of the execution, according to the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, which itself got the information from the United Arab Emirates on February 28.
“It is over. [Shahzadi] was executed on February 15. Her last rites will be held on March 5,” said Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma to the court on Monday, emphasising that the Government of India had tried its best to assist her.
On being informed about the execution, Justice Sachin Datta termed it “very unfortunate”.
Shahzadi Khan, 33, was handed over to Abu Dhabi Police on February 10, 2023, and she was sentenced to death on July 31, 2023. She was lodged in the Al Wathba jail of Abu Dhabi.
The submission was made during the hearing of the petition filed by the woman’s father seeking to know her well-being.
The Ministry of External Affairs, meanwhile, said on Monday that the Indian Embassy had provided all possible legal assistance to Shahzadi, including sending mercy petitions and pardon requests to the UAE Government.
Shahzadi was convicted of the murder of an infant and sentenced to death in the UAE. The highest court of the UAE, the Court of Cassation, upheld the sentence.
The UAE authorities intimated to the Embassy on February 28, 2025, that the sentence of Shahzadi had been carried out in accordance with local laws. The family of Shahzadi was informed of the matter, the MEA said.
Her father Shabbir Khan, a resident of Banda city in Uttar Pradesh, had said earlier that there was “profound uncertainty” regarding his daughter’s situation and his repeated applications to the Ministry of External Affairs for clarification were fruitless.
The father’s plea further alleged that Shahzadi was inadequately represented before the local courts in Abu Dhabi, in the case over the alleged murder of her employer’s four-month-old child, and that she was pressured into confessing, leading to the imposition of the death penalty on her.
During the HC hearing, the petitioner’s counsel said that his limited prayer was to know whether his daughter was alive or she had been hanged.
He said that on February 14, Shahzadi had called her family from the Abu Dhabi prison, saying that she would be executed in a day or two and that this would be her last call. Since then, they were unaware of her well-being, he said.
The Centre’s counsel told the court that the Embassy officials and the petitioner were in touch and arrangements were being made so that the family could attend their daughter’s last rites in Abu Dhabi.
“We did our best. We hired a law firm there to represent her in court. But the laws there deal with the murder of an infant very severely,” he submitted.
The petition said: “On February 14, 2025, the petitioner’s daughter telephoned him from detention, informing him that she had been relocated within the facility and that, prior to her potential execution, her final wish was to speak with her parents.”
It added: “The petitioner, with considerable effort, submitted an application dated February 21, 2025 to the Ministry of External Affairs, seeking to ascertain the current legal status of his daughter and confirm whether she remains alive or has been executed.”
The plea said that Shahzadi had travelled to Abu Dhabi in December 2021 after obtaining a legal visa. In August 2022, her employer gave birth to a son for whom Shahzadi was employed as a caregiver. On December 7, 2022, the infant received routine vaccinations and tragically passed away that evening, it said.
It claimed that the infant’s parents refused consent for a post-mortem and also signed an agreement to waive further investigation into the death.
