Indian on death row in Dubai
Nov 21, 2006 - 1:36:38 PM
, Reviewed by: Priya Saxena
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The carpenter, who finds time hanging heavy on his hands with nothing to do but watch television or shoot dice with other inmates, says the fire was an 'accident' and he was unaware of what he was doing at that time, thanks to the heavy amount of alcohol he had consumed.
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By Sudeshna Sarkar, Indo-Asian News Service,
[RxPG] Dubai, Nov 21 (IANS) A 60-year-old Indian carpenter is on the death row in Dubai for causing the death of nine people during a drunken bout 21 years ago.
Paul George, a father of two, is the longest serving prisoner in Dubai's Central Jail, having been behind bars since October 1985 after causing a fatal fire in a shanty area in Deira city that earned him the nick name 'arson killer'.
George, a self-confessed regular hard hitter of the bottle, used to frequent a nigh club every weekend and get drunk.
On the fateful day, after he returned to his shop from the club, he was teased by a group of children and he slapped one of them. The victim's father accosted him, accompanied by other neighbours, and gave him a drubbing.
Feeling humiliated, George drank more to drown his feeling of injury and then, under the influence of alcohol, poured paint thinner on the garbage heap behind the shanties where he lived and set it ablaze.
The victims were women and children - two Pakistani women and seven children aged between two and 14.
A neighbour saw George starting the fire and reported him to the police, resulting in his arrest the next day.
He was sentenced to death and has been living in the death row since then.
Last year his 24-year-old engineer son came to Dubai to work, and has been trying to get his father pardoned.
According to George, the families of the victims pardoned him eight years ago. It was not known immediately if George's family had paid the victims' kin the blood money-compensation-required for the pardon.
The carpenter, who finds time hanging heavy on his hands with nothing to do but watch television or shoot dice with other inmates, says the fire was an 'accident' and he was unaware of what he was doing at that time, thanks to the heavy amount of alcohol he had consumed.
The police described the fire and its aftermath as one of the grisliest incidents Dubai had seen.
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