The Other Side of Crime- 1

Every coin has got two sides. 

The stories the convicted female prisoners told about the reasons and causes for committing the crimes, their experiences in prison, the lessons learnt, their hopes and expectations- form the crux of these articles.

I am sharing the stories they told me in first person. It is just their version of the crime, their side of the story. May be they are true, may be false. I leave it to the readers to decide. 

Happy reading!

 

The Other Side of Crime- 1

“I didn’t do any crime, please believe me”

I swear I haven’t done any crime. My advocate assured me that I will be acquitted by the court. I stood waiting at the accused box inside the court, the ever shining beam of optimism weakly trying to push out the darkness of apprehension within my heart. The judge refused to look at me as read out the verdict.

“Since the crimes committed by the accused are proven beyond reasonable doubt, I convict her of double term life imprisonment.”

I stood frozen as if the earth caved from underneath my feet. The gloom which triumphed in my heart rose to my eyes in victorious waves as I crumpled down on the floor. No, no! I did not do it… I am totally innocent, totally... I was wailing, pleading, but no voice came out.

I was a simple little girl who loved flowers and butterflies. I enjoyed the small joys in life as a child. Though born in a poor family, I knew I was beautiful. Fair and cute with an angelic face, they all said. No one told me that I should study well in school or get an employment in future or even become economically stable. I was taught the little chores that every housewife should know. Cooking, cleaning, sewing, dancing and singing… the last two, probably to please the future husband! Somehow I studied till the tenth class without failing after which my school life stood still. I was still a child even when I became the wife of a Gulf employed man. At those times, it was indeed considered fortunate in my place to marry a man working in the Gulf Countries.

My husband was extremely cruel. He was a sadist who enjoyed torturing me. Married life was hell for me. I used to heave huge sighs of relief when he went back to Gulf for work leaving me with his people. His younger brother was the only one who sympathized with me. It seemed that he could see and feel the various bruises and burn injuries caused by cigarette butts on my body. His old mother ignored my cries of despair. My parents thought caring for the daughters ended with their marriage.

As time went on, I became mother to two children. Still, I dreaded my husband’s return home on leave. Whenever I get news that he will be home for a few days, I would start contemplating death. I stand near the well in the compound, near the electricity post or the stove in the kitchen seriously wondering whether it would be easier to commit suicide than suffer his tortures. Thoughts of my little kids would pull me back from the death-wish though I knew that my hesitation was pulling me deeper into the abyss of misery. Fear makes one less tolerant of physical hurt. That time when he came home, my trepidation led to unbearable pains. He seemed to enjoy that. No woman should experience such horrors from her husband who is supposed to protect and love her. On the third day of his leave, I got admitted in the hospital. He threatened that if I reveal the real reason behind the injuries, he would kill me and my kids. So even when the doctors asked me repeatedly to file a police complaint, I just cried and refused to budge.

After he left, for the first time in my life, I experienced love. I was taken home from the hospital by my husband’s brother in the car. He had a small job in town. He was also getting ready to go to the Gulf in search of a new job. As I sat on the front seat, he kept consoling me and telling how much he understood and empathized with me. I knew I should have considered him as my brother too; I was ethically his elder sister even though age wise, he was older than me. Still, I fell in love with him. He treated me as if I was as brittle as glass, as soft as cotton. His supple and gentle touches made me feel like a bud caressed by the bee to open up to a sweet smelling flower. Till then I never knew that a man could give so much pleasure to a woman. Our love was an unstoppable flow and it just had to happen. We were careful to be as secretive as possible though I never felt any guilt in that relationship. But good things hardly last in my life.

Somehow my mother in law came to know about it. And things took a turn for the worse. She started to attack me at the slightest opportunity. What started as a mental harassment soon became physical. She quarreled with her younger son and packed him off from the house to a distant relative’s house. She started beating up my kids just to spite me. One night she made the little children stand outside the house the whole night just to see me cry.  And she summoned my husband home. I knew she must have told him everything because his cruelty towards me became intolerable. I decided to kill myself then. I had no other escape route. My parents and relatives also accused me of immorality and told me not to approach them for any help.

The night my husband came home was one of extended torture. After beating me till I almost lost consciousness, he left home with my daughter to his uncle’s house nearby promising more torture once he returned. When I could get up from the floor, I took out the sharp knife I kept hidden under the bed and slashed deep both my wrists one after the other. Let him take care of the kids. But let him not marry again, God, I prayed as I lost consciousness. Just before my mind got invaded by blackness, I saw it clearly. Someone came into the room and carried my sleeping little son outside in his arms. Who was that, why and where was he taking my son? I wanted to scream, but couldn’t. I attempted to get up so that I could stop him, but my body was too weak.

The next day I regained consciousness and found that I was at a hospital. The first thing I saw was some women police officers staring at me. One of them told me that my mother in law and my little son were found murdered at the house. Once the shock of that news sank into my semi conscious mind, they gave me further shock by saying that I was the major suspect. I couldn’t understand it at first. I was unconscious. I thought I was dead. I attempted suicide. See my wrists? I slashed it, wanting to die. At that time my son and mother in law were alive. Someone must have come in and killed them. I saw my son being taken out of the room by someone. No, I couldn’t recognise him, still I saw him. I told them all this several times. I was too weak to even stop that, how could I kill them? I kept on repeating this to anyone who cared to listen. But the police case was already decided by then.

No one other than me had any motive to kill them. I committed the crimes so that I could live a new married life with my brother in law. My husband and his brother were far away and they had alibis. Nothing was stolen from the house. There was no forced entry into the house. The front door of the house was found open, but from inside. I opened it with plans to drag the bodies outside. The knife which stabbed them to death had my fingerprints in it. And I slashed my wrists after killing my son and mother in law for telling the police a false story. This was the police case. I asked them how I could expect to live an illicit life with my brother in law if my husband was still there. Shouldn’t it be him that I should kill first instead of my little baby? How could a mother kill her own little son? And the knife they recovered as the murder weapon was the one I used daily to cut vegetables in the kitchen. Naturally it will have my finger prints. None of my questions were heeded to by anyone.

For the last twelve years I am living within these dark prison cells for a crime committed by someone else. Days, nights, birthdays, festivals… there is no distinction for anything here. It is an eternal cave of darkness. One day they will come to know the truth, I kept that hope alive. After a few years in this jail, I got an anonymous letter. As is the practice, the jail authorities opened and read it before it was handed to me. It had no name of the sender. It said,

“It was I who killed them. I had my reasons. I who took out your sleeping son. He didn’t suffer, his death was fast. I tied your bleeding hands with cloths. I didn’t want you to die. I also called the neighbours to intimate them about the murders. I know you are convicted wrongly, I know that you are innocent. But I can’t surrender before the police now. I can’t reveal my identity or save you. I feel bad about you. If this letter can save you somehow, then you can prove your innocence and get out of prison.”

Hope, that dim lamp which lights up optimism within the heart started to shine after I read that letter. I sent copies of it to the judge who convicted me and to the police officers through my advocate. It has been a few years since I sent it. The original letter is still with me. No one came to enquire about it so far. I don’t know if they are even enquiring into it. Last time I asked my advocate he hinted that the police think that the letter was a fabricated one. Do they think I wrote it myself? When I went on parole? And posted it to myself? Pray, why? “You filed an appeal against your conviction in the High Court. They feel that such a letter may be a good defense from your side to at least ask for a re-investigation. So the police have just ignored that letter and didn’t include it in the case file, which is now closed by the way.” The advocate told me.

But truth will triumph one day. It has to. Now no one wants me. My husband and my daughter refuse to see me. My brother in law is in the Gulf now; he married a few years back. When on parole I used to go to my brother’s house. He is reluctant to take me on parole these days. But I still hope that everything to clear up and my innocence will be proved. Because I did nothing wrong, not a single thing!