The Other Side of Crime- 3

The Other Side of Crime- 3

I had to remove that horrible stain! 

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!

After obtaining my nursing degree, I worked for over three years in a reputed hospital earning a respectable salary. However, I stopped working after marriage like a good wife, like my husband wished. He was an officer in the Indian Army. We have two kids, the elder being a girl. I also wanted to work alongside my husband as a military nurse and requested him several times to get me an employment in his corps, but he insisted that I stay back at our family house to take care of his aged father and later our children. His father was sick ever since our marriage and I had to double up as a home nurse and a daughter in law to him. Prior to him getting fully bed ridden, I was to the military camps with my husband to various exotic locations in India which I tremendously enjoyed. After I delivered our daughter, this was stopped and I became a full time house wife. But I never complained.

I was born in a poor family and have tasted the bitterness of poverty while growing up. Because I was somewhat good looking, my husband was willing to marry me without any dowry. He also met most of the expenses of marriage. He is a goodhearted soul who loved me unconditionally. Even after two deliveries he called me ‘his beautiful girl’. He sent a major portion of his salary to me every month and never ever asked how I spent it. In addition, there was revenue from agricultural products at his family property too. I had no shortage of anything. There was enough food, clothing and entertainment. Cash was also not an issue at all. However, the only lack I felt was of transportation. There was an old car at home which gets out of the shed only when my husband came on leave. I found it difficult to resort to public transportation for urgent needs like taking the kids for tuition or to the park or the old father in law to the hospital. Taxis were too expensive for going out for shopping or for buying medicines. When I started to complain about this over phone, he arranged a distant relative to come and stay near us to help us with these things.

This guy was a young man who completed his post graduation and could not get a job till then. He knew driving and was extremely well behaved and obliging to all of us. He was occupying a room on rent at a nearby bachelor’s quarters. He turned out to be a big blessing for me. He used to come as soon as summoned even in the dead of night and started to take care of everything. I happily sent him for shopping and to hospitals also. This boy had a pleasant demeanor and attractive manners. Very soon, he endeared himself not just to me and to my husband’s old father, but also to my children. I started to consider him as my little brother and gave him all freedom in the house.

As time went by, he started to show this freedom on me and my body too. While talking, he would touch me, put his hand on my shoulder and even hug me when he came home after weekends. At first I let him do it, thinking that he was showing brotherly affection to me. But even when I knew within the deep recess of my heart that those gestures were getting far from brotherly, I did not make any attempt to stop him. I suppose I enjoyed it and sometimes even craved for it. On one occasion when he gave me the kit carrying provisions, he caressed the entire length of my hand in a loving and gentle way. Instead of feeling irritated and angry at him, I found this highly arousing and sexy. It felt as if a mild electric current passed through my body when he did that. Things changed after that touch.

It is said that people are slaves of their circumstances. The absence of my husband at home and the interest that this boy showered on me triggered hidden passions in my heart which led to an extra marital affair between us. We started to have a secret communion which lasted for three years. One day my husband’s father expired and he came home for a month for the funeral. While leaving back to the military base, I heard him tell his relative boy to be always there for me. Poor man, I felt a deep pity for his trust in me, but by that time, things were at a point of no return. We continued our relationship.

One day he told me that his parents are forcing him to marry a girl they found. I encouraged him to marry her thinking that it will be good in every sense. Even after marrying and bringing his wife also to the rented accommodation nearby, we continued our relationship. His marriage was like a protective shield for me. I thought that now nobody will suspect that we were having illicit relationship.

On one Sunday when I came back from the Church, I saw something which wrung my heart. My thirteen year old daughter was giving him tea. While taking the tea cup, he caressed the hand of my daughter, the same way like he did to me years back. To my utter shock, I saw my daughter shivering in pleasure at that touch, her innocent expression turning into a hungry one! He was smirking at her. 

 

I lost control of myself. I snatched the tea cup from him and threw it to the floor, crashing it to smithereens. I slapped my puzzled daughter and shouted at her never to even see that guy. I screamed at him, “Get out of this house, you bastard. I don’t want to see you again. Ever!” I expected him to cringe and obey me. Instead, he too became violent. He shouted back at me, “Shut up, you bitch! I will come here, do whatever I want here too. Don’t even try to stop me or else I will reveal everything to your husband and everyone else too. Remember, I have your text messages and pictures in my phone!” He threatened me.

Jesus! I started to cry. I saw my world crash around me like the tea cup I threw on the floor. Long after he left, I went inside to console my daughter. I have never slapped her before. Although I tried to explain my pain and apologized to her, she refused to listen to me. I never expected him to behave like this to my daughter. She calls him uncle, how could an uncle figure do this to a child? Is he that bad? Why didn’t I see this horrible side of him so far? He will do it again. My daughter will allow it too. But I will not allow it, I decided that night. I have to find ways to stop it.

The next day, I went to his place and apologized to him. I asked him to come home like before and that I will not be able to manage anything without him. I pretended to be sorry and was happy to see him fall prey to the trap. Back home, I took out my old nursing text books from the dusty box and started to study them again. I was searching for the foolproof method to kill a man without anyone suspecting any foul play. Then I procured cyanide and mixed the required quantity in the lime juice which I made by adding more than enough sugar to mask its metallic taste. Then I called him over phone to my house for some chores and offered the lime juice after everything was done. I expected him to drink it and leave the house for his room. I calculated that the drug will start affecting only within thirty minutes. But more precise calculations are made in heaven, I suppose. As soon as he consumed the juice, he fell down on the kitchen floor, started to vomit and was in the throbs of death. I panicked. I couldn’t do anything except shout and scream.

“Help, help! Somebody please help, my relative is sick, he needs to be taken to the hospital.” I cried loudly going to the gate of our house. The neighbors came immediately, the ambulance was called and he was taken to the hospital. But he died in the ambulance itself. I cleaned up the vomit in the kitchen, washed the glass in which poisoned lime juice was given and burnt the packet of remaining cyanide immediately to destroy evidence. Still, the police arrested me during the investigation of the case because autopsy revealed the presence of cyanide in his stomach. “It must be suicide. He had plenty of problems. He didn’t eat or drink anything from here. He must have consumed it before coming here”, I tried to defend myself to police.

“His wife gave us a statement that he was having illicit relationship with you. She said you called him on that day and he went from home over an hour before his death. Cyanide poisoning is fast. We also traced out the shop from which you got the poison. The case is strong.” The investigating officer informed me. “We also know your motive. Your daughter told us that there was a fight between you last Sunday when he threatened to reveal your affair to your husband. You finished him off to silence him.” I froze. I could not believe that my own child would speak against me. I felt the noose tightening. At the court during trial also, I repeated the plea that I was innocent and it was a suicide. “He was angry at me. He wanted me to suffer, so he must have consumed cyanide while in my house to punish me.” I pleaded. “Then why did you go and buy cyanide from the chemists?” The judge asked and sentenced me to life imprisonment for murder.

My husband resigned from the military and now is home with my children. He hates me and refuses to see or talk to me. I go out on paroles, but during that time, I stay with my parents. Even now I don’t feel that I did a crime. That man was a horrid stain in the society. I just wiped off that stain. That was all.