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| Bari Brahmana double murder: Poverty comes victim family's way for out of court settlement | | | Bharat Bhushan
JAMMU, July 29: Worn out by acute poverty, Krishna Devi is almost reduced to a mental wreck. Her husband Sardari Lal was shot dead by "identified" assailants over a decade back.
Every morning, she gets up, cursing Sardari's killers. The haunting sound of the gunfire has made her life uneasy.
The hapless widow has four daughters to feed, with no source of income. Sardari was the only bread earner. In his absence, the family is passing through the toughest time of their lives.
"I have not been able to cope with the incident. I am helpless in this regard," she says.
She wonders if they really deserved the tragedy that almost ruined them. Her husband was killed on February 12, 2001, in full public view by the assailants close to their house at Doulian in Bari Brahmana. Happiness never visited the family after that.
The killer bullets took the life of Sardari when he and several other Doulian inhabitants were cleaning a small pond in the village. People used its water for bathing and washing clothes.
In the indiscriminate firing on armless villagers allegedly by a family of Birpur, another Doulian resident, Karan (15), son of Gandarb, was also killed while some survived with bullet wounds. Karan studied in 10th class at the time of his death. The assailants were opposed to the entry of villagers to the pond. "My husband was not a criminal. The decision to clean the pond was taken by all in the village. Also, the pond is not anybody's personal property. So, why they killed my husband," asks Krishna.
She also criticised the government and its law enforcing agency, police, for not helping her get justice. She, however, feels that the Almighty would surely punish the accused for the wrong they had done to her and her four daughters.
She gets disturbed when anyone reminds her of the day when the misfortune visited them, causing them lifetime sadness. She wept inconsolably and tears coursed down her cheeks when this scribe visited her two-room house at Doulian and tried to know from her the details of the incident.
Amid sobs, she said they fought the legal battle for 10 years inspite of their weak financial health and poverty of resources.
Sardari's elder brother Des Raj, who lives close by, said when they realised that they were not in a position to take the legal battle further, they agreed for an out of court settlement on the mediation of a National Conference leader and MLC.
He said the alleged main accused in the case, a Birpur resident, had offered to help them construct a memorial in the name of Sardari and Karan on the piece
of land where they were killed but no financial help had so far come from him.
Raj and Krishna said they would have continued their legal struggle had they not been poor. "Our poor conditions are a curse on us," the widow said painfully.
"The gunfire continues to disturb me. Nothing good has happened to us in the past 10 years that can console me," she added.
Raj said the incident of firing had made the people angry and they had burnt the two-wheelers of the accused.
"Had their intention been to fight on the pond issue, the villagers too would have carried arms for self-defence," he added.
After consigning to flames the bodies of Sardari and Karan, the families collected the mortal remains and packed them in pouches. They did not take them to Haridwar for their immersion in the holy Ganges as per the Hindu religious rites but tied them to the branch of a Banyan tree adjacent to the pond.
The pouches were brought down by the families after the "settlement" between the two sides few months back and buried under the land where a broken cement shed stands now. The shed is proposed to be developed into a memorial.
"I find myself helpless to stop my tears whenever when I look at the dilapidated shed. I curse myself for my helplessness to construct a good memorial in the name of my husband," Krishna said.
"I pray to God day in, day out to do justice with my family," she added.
The widow was now worried about the future of her daughters. "I do not have money to spend on their education and marriage," she said.
"But I have a feeling that God would come to our help," she added, with tears rolling down her cheeks. |
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