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| Poonam’s father Santosh is sitting in the verandah on a plastic
chair. |
Robert Spencer : Poonam’s father Santosh is sitting in the verandah on a plastic
chair. A wooden bed without a mattress is placed near him, and a cage
carrying two birds is hung nearby. Raj comes with a glass of water.
Santosh explains that his wife Kalawati has gone to a temple, along with
Poonam’s son Rudra, for a Shiva Abhishek ritual.This
correspondent asked them if that was not unusual for a family that had
lost a member, given that Hindus in the area do not indulge in any
religious activity for at least 13 days after a death.
Santosh said the family had considered Poonam dead in December itself.
“After
she left her home with that Muslim man, she was dead for us. We
disassociated from her. How could we not? We are Gonds, we stay attached
to our culture. We are Hindus, but she went on to become Mohammedan,”
he says.
Santosh continues, “That Katanni and his family buried
her after her death. They did not let us perform any of our customs. So
how can you say we lost a family member?”.
Raj does not speak. Santosh goes on to say that Poonam faced consequences of her actions and ignored all his warnings and pleas.
Asked to narrate her story, Santosh sighs but agrees.
In
2017, when Poonam had just turned 18, he fixed her marriage to a man
named Umesh from within their Gond jaati. She went on to give birth to
two children. The elder, Rudra, is now four while the younger, Saadhna,
is one year old.
Santosh describes her marriage with Umesh as a “happy” one.
On 9 May 2020, he received a call from his son-in-law Umesh that Poonam had left his house after a quarrel and was untraceable.
She was found with Umesh’s friend Istaak the same night. Santosh says her hands and feet were tied.
Poonam filed a police case against Istaak the next day, accusing him of abduction and rape, and he was arrested and jailed….
The
statement of Poonam recorded in the FIR says that on 9 May 2020, she
and her husband Umesh had a small fight, so around 8.30 in the night,
she left the house to go to her parents’ home.
On her way, she
borrowed a person’s mobile phone and called up “Katanni Mussalman”,
asking him to drop her at her parents’ home. He reached the spot on a
bike and they both headed towards her house. On the way, he stopped his
bike in front of an empty quarter (room) near Govinda colony.
He
took her inside and tied her hands and legs with a rope. He raped her
that night. Around midnight, her mother-in-law Kaushalya Bai, her mother
Kalawati, her father Santosh and her husband Umesh reached the quarter
and found her. They opened the rope and brought her home.
They
held Katanni and tied him with the same rope, and began taking him to
the police station. However, he escaped on the way. He left his mobile
phone with the family. They gave the mobile phone to the police as
evidence of the crime.
The statement further says that Katanni had
raped her several times at her house on gunpoint, threatening her to
kill her husband and children if she told anyone. So Poonam did not tell
anyone in her family about Katanni.
At the time of the crime, she was five months pregnant and Katanni knew that.
Poonam’s statement concludes with her appealing for strict action against Katanni….
