Hyderabad, Feb 21 (IANS): After spending 18 years in a Dubai jail in a murder case, four of the five workers from Telangana have returned home.

Emotional scenes were witnessed at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport as two workers hailing from Rajanna Sircilla district were received by their family members on Wednesday.

Shivarathri Mallesh and his brother Shivarathri Ravi turned emotional on seeing their near and dear ones and embraced them.

Dundugula Laxman had returned two months ago while Shivarathri Hanmanthu came back two days ago.

The fifth person Venkatesh is likely to be released from jail next month.

A Dubai court had sentenced five workers to 25 years in jail for killing Bahadur Singh, a watchman from Nepal.

The United Arab Emirates government had approved their mercy petition after an appeal by then state minister K. T. Rama Rao (KTR) during his visit to Dubai in September last year.

KTR arranged flight tickets for the workers to return.

They were all lodged in Aweer Jail in Dubai. KTR, who is MLA from Sircilla, had personally visited Nepal in 2011 to meet the deceased’s family members to hand over Rs 15 lakhs as compensation or ‘Diyyah’ (blood money) as per Sharia Law.

Later, the victim’s family submitted the mercy petition documents to the UAE government. However, due to some reasons and the gravity of the crime, the UAE government didn’t approve the mercy petition.

KTR through the Indian Consul General in Dubai, the Arab lawyer who is handling the case, and other government officials kept enquiring about the status of the case.

During his previous visit to Dubai in September 2023, he requested the UAE government to approve the mercy petition considering that the five NRIs had already spent a long time in jail and also hold a good conduct certificate from the jail authorities.