India, July 22 -- Something tells me that Nimisha Priya will not be executed.

The Sharia law operating in the part of Yemen ruled by the Iran-backed Houthi forces has sentenced the 38-year-old nurse from Kerala to death for murdering her Yemeni business partner. Every plinth in that regime's politico-legal edifice has confirmed the sentence. The Palakkad-born Christian has for the many months now since her arrest and sentencing, been ready to face the firing squad, Yemen's preferred mode of enforcing the death penalty.

But whether because India matters, or because Nimisha's case drew almost immediate world attention, or because Iran and Saudi Arabia counselled against the execution, the bullets meant to kill Nimisha have not left their ...