Indian engineer Vishnu Dev Radhakrishnan, who spent 5.5 years behind bars over accusations of ‘blasphemy’, finally released from Saudi jail

Vishnu Dev Radhakrishnan was sentenced to 10 years in prison on the grounds of ‘misusing social media’ and hurting the religious and national sentiments of the Gulf nation

On Tuesday (19th December), the father of Vishnu Dev Radhakrishnan took to social media to inform that his son who spent the past 5 and half years in a Saudi jail has been released.

An engineer by profession, Radhakrishnan became the first Indian to be tried under the draconian blasphemy laws of Saudi Arabia. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison on the grounds of ‘misusing social media’ and hurting the religious and national sentiments of the Gulf nation (for his remarks on Prophet Muhammad).

In a tweet on X (formerly Twitter), the father of the victim wrote, “At last my son is saved with the help of Nouf Marwaai and advocate Samar Sufiani. I am thankful to these ladies of Saudi and the authorities of Saudi Govt. All these couldn’t have been possible without the help of my friend.”

“All this happened due to the effort of @duryodan_ who introduced me to @NoufMarwaai and through her the contract was signed with the Advocate”, he further added.

In another tweet, the father of the victim claimed that Vishnu Dev Radhakrishnan was never ill-treated by Saudi jail authorities and that they facilitated his early release.

The story of Vishnu Dev Radhakrishnan

On the fateful day of June 7, 2018, Vishnu Dev Radhakrishnan was arrested by the police in Saudi Arabia on charges of blasphemy. Vishnu Dev, a native of Alappuzha in Kerala, had been residing in the Gulf nation for 6 years then.

He was working at Saudi Aramco’s subsidiary, Nasser S Al-Hajri Corporation, as an engineer. In 2018, Vishnu Dev had befriended a Muslim girl on the micro-blogging platform on Twitter. She was a resident of London in the United Kingdom.

During their conversation on Twitter, the Muslim girl made objectionable remarks against Lord Shiva. An enraged Vishnu Dev then tweeted against Prophet Muhammad. He also asked as to why schools in Yemen were bombed if Allah was merciful.

Given that bombings in Yemen were conducted on the behest of the Saudi regime, the government clamped down on him hard. Vishnu Dev’s father recounted, “The tweets went through Aramco’s server. Vishnu told me that the officials at Aramco might have taken the screenshots of his conversation with the woman and given it to the police.”

About 15 days before his arrest, the Indian man was quizzed by the security officials at Aramco. The company officials had detained him at the office for 15 days and said that he would be deported back to India. Instead of letting him contact the Indian embassy, Vishnu Dev was handed over to the police.

On June 7, 2018, he was arrested by the police on the grounds of ‘misusing social media’ and for hurting the religious and national sentiments of the Gulf nation (for his remarks on Prophet Muhammad).

On September 13 that year, he was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment in Khobar jail and penalised a sum of 1,50,000 Riyal (₹29.12 lacs). Later on January 24, 2019, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison and an additional penalty.

While speaking about his case, a Malayali social organisation Navayugam informed that Vishnu Dev was fortunate to escape beheading and other draconian forms of punishment due to his nationality.

According to Radhakrishnan, some Indian Muslims took screenshots of Vishnu Dev’s tweets and complained about him to the Saudi authorities. Interestingly, he informed that prisoners from Kerala lodged in the same jail had tried to proselytise and convert him to Islam.