Riyadh asked to reconsider eye gouging ruling

India has asked Saudi Arabia to sympathetically review the case of an Indian worker after a court ordered that his eye be gouged out for accidentally blinding a Saudi national in one eye during a scuffle.

E. Ahamed, India’s junior foreign minister, told Parliament that a Saudi court had ordered that the worker, Abdul Lateef Naushad’s right eye be gouged out after the Saudi citizen, Naif Al-Otaibi, lost his right eye during a fight.

Naushad was arrested in Saudi Arabia soon after the incident in April 2003.

A court in the eastern Saudi city of Dammam recently ruled that under Sharia law Naushad’s right eye be removed.

Ahamed told MPs that the Indian embassy in Saudi Arabia has appealed for a reconsideration of the case and a mercy petition has been submitted to Saudi King Abdullah earlier this week.