THE OTHER SIDE OF CRIME -7

THE OTHER SIDE OF CRIME-7

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!

                         Her letter destroyed my life…

I am a girl who underwent the cruel punishment of jail imprisonment for three years without doing any crime whatsoever in my life. I was destined to go through this horrible experience because of a letter written by my heartless sister- my elder brother’s wife.

I was studying for BEd aiming towards my wish to be a school teacher when I got arrested by police. My parents were teachers too. My handsome elder brother was running a margin free super market in town. He married a girl who frequented that shop with the apparent reason of shopping, but hidden wish to make my brother fall in love with her. She got smitten by him at first sight itself. But he was not too keen to marry her. Though from a very rich family, she was modern and stylish and my brother rather liked to marry a simple village girl. When the pressure was mounting from both the girl’s and our family for this alliance, my brother told me, “I’d have been happy if she was like you. She told me that if I do not agree to marry me, she would commit suicide. I don’t like girls who threaten me.” But I too asked him to say yes. “But she loves you madly. Isn’t that reason enough to marry her?” I reasoned.

My poor brother believed that everything will be okay after the wedding. She was born in a Gulf country, did her entire schooling there, she is more in tune with the western ways of dressing, behaving and talking. She was bold and independent. I thought these were admirable qualities in a woman.

The first few months after marriage went off happily for my brother and my new sister. Slowly disturbances surfaced. She was insisting on shifting residence from the ancestral home and stay at a rented accommodation in town, near to her husband’s shop and her parent’s house. My brother who was very much attached to his parents refused it right away. Then she openly disallowed us to get into the car if we were planning to go some place. “This car was given by my father. I want only my husband and me to travel in it.” She said rather rudely when an excited mother sat on the front seat to go to the temple as requested by my brother. She had to get out shame facedly. This was disgusting for us. My sister in law did not know driving, but would ask my brother to take her out every day in the car for movies, for shopping or to the beauty parlour. In addition to all this, she refused to get into the kitchen and cook any food. She showed no interest to learn or do any house-hold work and expected everything to be done either by my mother or me. And when she fought with my brother, she would go to the extremes and say very rude things about all of us. Sometimes, I used to wonder if she was normal because she would talk about death at the drop of a hat! All her sentences would end with “I’m going to die.” “I will commit suicide.” “I’m going to slash my wrist.” “I will hang myself.” Though these were routine threats it really scared us, particularly my parents.

My brother was quite fed up after a few months that he extended his shop timings, sometimes even beyond midnight. While he was staying as far away as he wished from her, she directed her frustration and anger towards me most of the time. When relationships go bad, it is natural to use bad words about others. She used to call me a lot of names. But what I could not tolerate was her using bad words about my brother. “Why is he staying away from me? Stray dog! He is taking revenge up on me. I told him about my affair on the first night. So now, he is having affairs with other women to punish me. That is why he never comes home in time. Lecher! I will show him!” She shouted one day to me.

“It is not because he is having affairs with other women that he does not come home in time, it is because of you! You are such a pain in the neck that he is comfortable being away from you.  Why don’t you give him some peace?” I shouted back at her. But her revelation that she had an affair with a boy was appalling. My brother never revealed it to us. When my mother asked him he admitted that she told him all that. She had eloped with her boyfriend while she was in school and it was the police who brought her back to her parents. She had to be subjected to psychological counselling after that. Horrified, my parents suggested my brother to get divorce. It was too intolerable to them. But my sister in law refused. “I will not leave him. You cannot chase me away. He is my husband. This is my home.” She said with finality. Ignoring her, my brother went to an advocate and engaged him to file a divorce case at the family court.

And then that day came. I had my exams that day. Since it was our grandfather’s death anniversary, father had gone to the temple for doing the rites. My mother was bedridden with high fever. As usual, my sister in law was causing a huge ruckus for silly reasons at home from the early morning itself that I couldn’t study. “Couldn’t you just shut up? Why are you always so loud?” I went to her and asked, “Don’t you know I have exams today? Or are you making all this knowing that? To purposefully disturb me?” I was at the edge of my wits. She did not like my tone and started to shower abuses at me. That made my brother also loose temper. He gave her a slap to quieten her. It was the first time he was getting really angry at her. Howling, she went to her room and slammed the door. After some time my brother went to the shop and I went to the college.

When I got back home after the exam I was told the shocking news. My brother who got a phone call from the neighbours by 1 PM rushed home to find smoke coming from the kitchen of the house. He found his wife unconscious on the kitchen floor with severe burn injuries and his mother too with burns all over her body. He rushed them to the hospital. My sister in law sustained over 70% burn injuries and mother who tried to douse the fire and save her daughter in law also got burns as her dress caught fire. After a few days of treatment in the hospital, my sister in law succumbed to her injuries. Another distressing thing that came to light was that she was 4 months pregnant! My brother vouched that she did not tell him about the pregnancy.

The father of my sister in law gave complaint to the police that his daughter’s death was not an accident, but planned murder. In his plaint, he said that the gas stove was turned on intentionally so that she could get burned and killed while she attempted to cook in the kitchen. He further wrote that his naive daughter was harassed for dowry by my brother and his parents. As proof he gave some letters she wrote to her parents which all mentioned the harassment she was subjected to at our place. In one particular letter she had written- “My husband’s sister is the worst. She threatened to kill me by opening the gas stove in the kitchen and burning me alive. If at all I die, please know that it was her doing.” And that was her last letter to her parents!

We never knew about these lies in her letters until the police came home to arrest me and my brother. They lifted my finger prints from the gas stove and the cylinder. They said that before going to college, I went to the kitchen and kept the gas cylinder and stove opened, knowing that mother who was laid up will not go to the kitchen and if my sister in law goes and try to cook something, she would die. They did not accept my honest statement that I never went to the kitchen at all that day. We were ignorant about law and legal matters and never expected them to arrest us. But thankfully, the police spared my aged parents. I think that my sister in law’s rich parents influenced the police to make out this false case against us. Both my brother and I were remanded in jail for two weeks after the arrest, after which my father got an advocate to take us out on bail.

My life crumbled to pieces around my feet. I felt totally destroyed. I could not complete my studies; a marriage alliance which was more or less fixed was withdrawn. I don’t blame them, who would marry a jail bird? I believe my mother’s version that sister in law’s burn injuries were purely accidental. Around 12 noon that day, she went to my mother’s room claiming that she was hungry. When my mother started to get up to make some lunch, she refused it and went to the kitchen saying, “No, no. I don’t want you to cook my food. What if you poison me?” After a few minutes of unsuccessful attempts, my mother heard her come out and call someone on her phone. She talked for a long time and then went back to the kitchen. Her screams and the fire followed soon after. She must have kept the stove open unknowingly which caused the accident. My mother switched it off and poured water on her daughter in law attempting to save her.

After almost a year, we got convicted in trial for dowry death. In between, my father got paralysis and was bedridden. Unfortunately our advocate could not plead for us effectively. He later told someone that he was not paid enough and hence he was not very serious about the case! Anyway, I got 5 years and my brother, seven years of imprisonment in the court verdict. Another lawyer was engaged by my father to file appeal in the High Court. But that went on for a long time since my sick father could not personally go after the case. My mother changed the lawyer after two years and sold off part of the property to pay him. We got paroles after a year. What I could not tolerate was not going back to jail once our paroles got over, but my mother’s anguished weeping when we left. It broke my heart every time and I would curse that my sister in law’s soul should rot eternally in hell. What else could I do? Then another misery happened. My father expired without seeing his innocent children abdicated from the wrong charges against them.

Ultimately the High Court issued orders on our appeal petition saying that my imprisonment shall be terminated with immediate effect, but my brother will have to continue his full term of imprisonment! Now I am back at home taking care of my old and sick mother while my brother continues to undergo his unjust punishment. I tried my luck at my brother’s margin free shop by opening it for a few days after my release, but even after a week, not a single person came to buy anything from there. So now it remains closed.

Society had branded me as a murderer. Totally innocent I am, as long as it remains imprinted here, I will have to suffer this stigma and continue my insignificant and meaningless life on this cruel earth!