It was an incident that shook the world with protest and hatred towards the brutality, inhumanity of the Pakistani village council. Mai had to pay the price for her brother’s ‘illicit’ love-affair with a woman of the same village where they lived. The woman belonged to a rival clan that was the only point of objection. Her brother should be punished. So, the village council decided to give such a verdict, so that nobody ever dares to do the same thing. Some of the men belonging to Mai’s rival group decided to rape the sister instead to establish an instance for ‘an eye for an eye’. Ironically enough, later the ‘crime’ committed by the brother proved wrong, but he was sodomized by the men of the rival gang. The sister too was not spared. How could she be, being such a beautiful young woman?
On June 22, 2002, several men from that village council belonging to Lahore district forcibly dragged Mai in the assembly arranged by the council. Thereafter the ‘punishment’ was decided, and the leader of the rival clan dragged Mai inside a nearby stable, where she was gang raped for an hour or two by those men. Thereafter, she was pushed outside of the stable, wearing only a torn shirt and was forced to roam around the whole village, fully naked…
Her father came and covered her with a shawl and brought the tortured, bruised, traumatized daughter back home. Later, under the inspirations of a local Moulana, and a journalist, Mai and her family lodged a complaint with the police. Pakistani policemen came to the village and arrested the rapists. Mai’s clothes were produced as the evidence to the lower court, where semen strains of at least 2 men were found. A lower court of Lahore sentenced each of the 6 men to death and acquitted 8 others, which was later condemned by the Supreme Court.
But, the fuss began with the sentence given by Lahore High Court. It claimed that Mai couldn’t see the faces of the rapists clearly due to the lack of electricity in the village. Therefore, 5 of the convicts were acquitted and one of them was sentenced to life imprisonment. Everybody was surprised to see the commuting of the sentence, but that was of no use. Pakistan Supreme Court, although suspended the order and retried all of the men, upheld the sentence of the high court on April 21, 2011. Mai’s movement had been restricted by the government during the trial and her passport was also confiscated.
Mai now runs 2 girl’s schools in her village to educate the Pakistani women with the help from all over the world. She also established an organization named ‘Mukhtaran Mai Women’s Welfare Organization’ and proved herself as a staunch advocate of women’s rights. Her autobiography has been listed as the number 3 bestseller in France. She was also honoured by the ‘Glamour’ magazine as the ‘Glamour Woman of the year’ in 2005.
But, behind the success, lies the fear of retaliation. What, if ‘they’ come and avenge the price they had to pay by serving behind the bar? This is the ‘gift’ Mai has got in the name of ‘justice’ from the government of Pakistan and the judiciary.
Sohini died because she refused to compromise. She
is yet to get justice.
It was 10.30 pm, a day in June, 2009. Sohini’s
father received a call from his daughter, “Baba, please come here and take me
home. I can’t live here anymore.”
He was surprised. When he met his daughter that
evening, she seemed quite alright. He wondered, what had suddenly happened to her.
Why was she begging him to take her away from the home she was living in with
her newly married husband? The tensed father called the daughter back. Nobody
received the call. That made the situation even worse. The father was
miserable, when his incessant calls remained unanswered. Finally, he received a
call from his son-in-law. He was panting in the phone, “Sohini is very seriously
ill. We are taking her to Hindusthan Health Point Nursing home in Garia. Please
come here quickly.” Sohini’s parents didn’t give it a second thought. They were
wondering, what really happened to their only daughter! She was in perfect health
when they met her that evening. How could she have fallen sick within such a
short span of time?
But…..it was too late. When they reached the nursing
home, Sohini was lying there, on a cold hospital stretcher, still,
calm…………….dead.
What startled Sohini’s parents most was the way she was
dressed when she ‘hung herself to death’ (according to the husband and the
in-laws). Many questions arose before the bereaved parents. The mother was not
in a state to think. But, the father, Mr. Amal Basu was thinking about the
prospective causes that might have killed his daughter. It was very unlikely
that a young woman would ‘hang herself to death’ without wearing any
undergarment! There was only a kamiz with no salwar to cover her lower body!
That was what disturbed the father most who had lost his daughter in such a
gruesome way. The parents didn’t waste any time to call the police. The police
came, took Sohini’s lifeless body to the morgue for routine post-mortem,
handcuffed the husband and the in-laws and left.
The Telegraph, Anandabazar Patrika, Star Ananda,
Ekdin were there in full force the very next day. The Metro segment of the
Telegraph featured a full page coverage on the mysterious death of Sohini Basu;
an efficient public relations professional, within a month and five days of her
marriage with her classmate of Rabindrabharati University, from where she did
her masters in Mass Communication and Videography. This writer had personally
investigated the death mystery on behalf of Ekdin. The apparent cause of this
death was ‘suicide’, though, no suicide note was found at the site of death.
The media featured the story of a love-affair that met with a brutal death. When
the police started the investigation, it was found that Sohini had got married
to Arup Ghosh, 2 years prior to the social marriage. Why did she hide the
marriage from everybody was not clear. The police also found some undergarments
and distorted cloths of Sohini scattered around the room where she lived. That
made the confusion surrounding the death even deeper. Thereafter came the
post-mortem report; a bamboozled piece of paper that announced the cause of
death to be ‘by partial hanging’. Those
mystified words proved nothing. Some torture marks were also found on the body.
The police revealed that her palms and feet had cigarette burns and some of her
hair were lost as if somebody had ripped them off the scalp. The real cause of
death was still hanging from a thread.
The police had learnt that a huge sum of money and
some valuable ornaments had been given to Arup as ‘dowry’ at the time of
marriage. The amount was nearly 1 lakh in Indian rupees! Sohini’s parents
admitted to the ‘mistake’ of giving dowry; but the mistake proved to be too big.
Their daughter was gone, gone from this world…..forever…
The Sohini Basu death mystery is still being heard
in a lower court of Kolkata. The husband and the in-laws, who had enough
courage to describe how Sohini dragged the stool and the rope to the veranda
from where she hung herself in front of at least 5 ‘witnesses’, were freed in
bail and fled. Yes, they fled Kolkata and their whereabouts remain unknown till
date. And, Sohini is yet to get justice….
This incident clearly marks the existence of the
dowry system, a curse that has almost engulfed the Indian society, even today.
An educated man like Amal Basu had encouraged the curse to prove its existence
once again. And, the result is, a brutal, gruesome, untimely death.
Dowry, as a curse to the society has long been
regarded as a sinister practice, and is banned according to Indian Penal Code. The
Dowry Prohibition Act was enacted in 1961. The law prohibits any kind of
‘gifting processes’ at the time of marriage. The asset value must be higher
than Rs. 2,000. In application, it was seen that educated young men are
claiming dowry in a roundabout way, avoiding the law. A survey showed, at least
56% of married Indian women die because of the sinister practice. They are
either killed by their husbands and in-laws or commit suicide after intolerable
torture.
In 1983, section 493 A of Indian Penal Code has been
introduced that deals with the practice of dowry and the mysterious, torturous
death of a woman that involves dowry as a cause. According to the section, committing
torture for dowry is a non-bail- able offence. Indian Penal Code suggests that
if a woman dies a mysterious death within 7 years of her marriage, then the
death would be regarded as ‘dowry-death’. Section 113 A of IPC would see if the
woman was tortured before death, and if that is proved, the husband and the
in-laws would be charged with culpable homicide. Section 113 B would see if
dowry is involved and the woman was tortured for that cause. If it is proved,
that the woman was tortured for ‘not giving’ dowry and she died a mysterious
death after that, the husband and the in-laws would be regarded as ‘prospective
culprits’. They would be given either 7 years or life-time imprisonment
according to Section 304 B of Indian Penal Code. These sections of IPC are very
important in dealing with the social curse of dowry-death. But, in reality, we
see that it is very tough to prove a ‘dowry death’ committed within the four
walls of a house. In most of the cases, the culprits are freed because of the
absence of ‘appropriate evidence’. The
parents, on the other hand, do not bother to re-open the case as they are also
involved in a punishable act of paying dowry.
These are the causes, for which women like Sohini Basu
die an untimely and terrible death. There are many more Sohinis all around us. What
we lack is social awareness regarding the curse of dowry. Even educated middle
class come along to encourage the sinister practice.
When will we ever learn? How many Sohinis will be
there to give their life to prove the existence of a social curse, a curse that
curbs women to live, to achieve the utmost level of their womanhood…….to be a
human being………
