Travel Mates is a series of travel and my interactions with various people I met during the travel. It’s about how people think and what the views are of those people on various topics that we converse on… The names and the location of travel have been changed (except few) for those people don’t want to be named in the series and on the internet… Here we go with the story…
I was sitting on my seat in the bus awaiting the bus to start. I knew it would be few minutes before the bus was full. The seat beside me was a reserved one and I, like most of normal guys, was wishing for a pretty girl to occupy that seat. The journey was about 2 hours long.
“Is this seat number 15?” a guy in his late 40s asked me.
I knew that the seat beside me would not be occupied by a pretty girl and I will have to travel with the guy in is late 40s all the way…
“Yes – it is…” I replied casually and looked out of the window disinterested in the person who was trying to adjust to the seat trying to make him comfortable. After some time I realized from the corner of my eyes that the person was looking at me intently. I casually looked at him and he gave me a warm smile…
“You are PD – aren’t you?”
I was taken aback and tried to recognize him. His face seemed familiar but I couldn’t recognize him, “Yes – I am PD.”
“It’s been a long time since we met. You don’t seem to have changed since our last meeting.” I was still wondering who this person was who seemed to know me “Hey! Don’t look at me this way… I am Alan – the elder brother of Anthony – your friend in college. We met last when I got married and you fell for a pretty girl called Gwendolyn… remember me now?”
The clouds of hazed memory phased out and I looked at the smiling face and smiled back at him, “Hi Alan… I couldn’t recognize you. How is Anthony doing? Where is he now?”
“Well – he’s settled at Dubai now – with his wife and children.”
“Ooohh! I missed his wedding…”
“Still thinking of Gwendolyn?”
“No… When did he get married?”
“He left for Dubai about 10 years ago and met his wife there and got married in Dubai – he has not visited India since then… Are you married?”
“No – I am yet single and I don’t plan to get married soon…”
“Do you think about Gwendolyn?”
“Uhh! No… she was just a passing crush at your wedding. I have never thought about me getting married. Soft flirtations do happen occasionally – but they are fine – mostly they cease before blooming into something serious. I am too preoccupied in what I am doing – job and writing books…”
“You write books?” he looked at me amazed
“Ya – I try to and also try to make them entertaining enough that people who read them feel like watching a movie…”
“Hey! That’s nice. Tell me about the books that you wrote…”
I told him about various books like Akhand Hind Fauj, Shadyantra and Kekacauan which were doing good business in the market. He looked them up on the Amazon app in his mobile and ordered all of them – nothing satisfies an author than the sight of his books being sold – I am not an exception either…
“Are these the only books you have written or is there something more?”
I told him about the website where I write short stories which are equally entertaining with action, suspense and mystery… www.storiesandme.com
“Seems you are doing pretty well in this field too…”
“I am trying to – let us see how the writing on the website turns out – I have just about started there… The website belongs to my friends and they love my kind of writing – that’s the reason they post it on the website…”
He looked at the website quite impressed and then looked at me, “I didn’t know of this talent of yours – are you working on a new story?”
“Not actually – I had written a story in late 1990s and start of Y2K – I have given the story to my friends to upload on the website. It’s the first ever book I wrote… Virtual Schizophrenia.”
“That’s an interesting title… I don’t see it on the website.” He scrolled the website on his phone again.
“They said I should publish the book so that I can earn money. So they have published it on Kindle. To be frank, I don’t want to earn any money on the story I had written almost 25 years ago. I was too young and immature. Further my morals say that the story should be out and free to read for anyone who is a reader and especially girls.”
“Any specific reason for this stance?” he looked at me not ready to believe what I just said – who doesn’t want to earn money?
I told him about the incident which happened in March 1990 where a girl was burnt alive in the classroom when she was appearing for her board exam and how the photographs of the classroom had haunted me. “The incidences of girls being attacked brutally have risen and I don’t want any new names added to the list of victims.” I told him truthfully
When I told him about the incident – he looked lost into some faraway memory. His face showed anger and anguish at the same time.
“Hey – what happened?” I searchingly asked him.
He looked grimly at me, “If I tell you about another such incident… Will you write about her and for justice that may not have been delivered?”
“I don’t know if I will be able to write a story on the girl you are mentioning – however, I can promise you that I will write about the incidence and give it to my friends to be hosted on the website.”
“Fair enough – I will tell you about the incident and I want you to listen carefully.”
I looked at him with complete attention and he started off trying to recollect the incident as he could remember…
“It was year 2007 and I worked with a BPO catering to American clients. We had shifts that coincided with their timings – mostly overnights and graveyard ones.
I was doing good and I was promoted to be an SME – like a specialist supervisor and we had a crowd of over 1000 employees who worked for the process I worked for and we were about 15 such supervisors. Our job was to help the agents do their work and solve their queries and take escalations if any client asked for a supervisor and try to solve their issues with help of special tools we had…
I remember it was 1st November 2007 – I had a shift that started at 10pm and ended at 7am. At that time we didn’t have security people in the cabs that brought us to office and dropped us back at home. And normally, it used to be the same cab for a month or two who used to pick us up. That saved time as the driver of that cab knew where to pick us up and at what time. There were hundreds of cabs picking up and dropping employees like me. There were many BPOs around and our BPO had many different processes housed within the complex. Even the cabbies were aligned to the process and they used to take turns to pick and drop certain predefined people home.
As usual, I reached the premise about 45 minutes before time and spent my time smoking in the zone provided and meeting with colleagues who had the same shift as mine.
We started off with the shift in time and about an hour into the shift there was a small commotion – a person who was with us in the 10pm shift walked in. When asked why he was late he told that the cab was late owing to a punctured tyre and had brought him late. When asked where was Jyoti Kumari – he replied that she wasn’t in the cab – perhaps she didn’t want to come to the office on the last day of her job.
I had seen her name popping up on the AWAYA whenever she called for help but I was unable to recall her face – she must have been a simple girl. During the break when I asked one of my colleagues about her – I came to know that she had resigned and it was her last working day with our process. One of the team leaders said that she should not have done this as it would be termed absconding and she would lose her salary as well the perks. Also not handing back the ID card would be treated as misbehaviour and illegal. I shook my head at how careless people are and not wanting to earn what they have worked for and continued with my shift.
Next evening was no different and the shift was hectic with high flow of incoming calls. It was toward the end of my shift when I saw the management running around in frenzy and tense. I didn’t bother thinking something which I am not concerned would have happened and continued on the escalation I had been handling. At about 7.05am I logged off tired with heavy call flow that day and ventured out for a smoke.
I met another team leader who looked tense in the smoking zone. When I asked – he told me that Jyoti Kumari was found raped and murdered at a secluded barren plot in the outskirts of the city. I couldn’t believe what he said and he also didn’t know what actually had happened. With heavy heart and shock of something like this happening with a colleague, I walked to the parking lot to board the cab which was supposed to drop me home. It was the regular cab and the driver knew where to drop me off. I realized, I was alone in the cab for the drop as others had their weekly offs. So I suggested the driver that we stop at some tea-stall for a cup of tea and he agreed for it also was the last trip for him before he could rest.
As we sat at a tea stall, I told him about what I had heard about Jyoti Kumari. He looked at me and said that driver and his friend have been arrested and have been taken into police custody. Then he told me what actually had happened as he heard it…
The driver (the inhuman criminal) was new to them as a replacement for the driver who was on leave. It had not been even a week that he had joined and his background verification was in process. Other drivers did think that this person was a bit odd in his behaviour. He was the one who picked and dropped her back for 3-4 days and may have heard that she was on notice period and 1st November was her last day with the BPO.
He had 2 pickups that eventful night and he picked her up accompanied by his friend. They drove out of city limits. I don’t know who she was talking to but it seems she was on her phone and wasn’t looking where they were heading. Perhaps, the driver had told her that there was a wayward pickup that night.
They drove to a secluded spot about 15 kilometres off the track outside the city limits – it takes hardly 20 minutes to travel that distance at the time of night. By the time she realized, she was trapped. They took her phone away and raped her one by one. After raping her he sat on her chest and asked her if she liked him. She pleaded to let her go and she would keep quiet about the entire episode. He again asked her if she liked him and she again pleaded to let her go after which he strangled her to death and threw a boulder on her face smashing it.
I don’t know if she stayed with her relatives or she was supposed to meet them next day after she quit the BPO. Not finding her they lodged a missing complaint with the police when the hunt started and her body was found in this pathetic condition. The driver after raping and killing her had picked up the other employee as if nothing had happened and had given an excuse that he was late for a punctured tyre.”
I looked at him shocked of the happening and wondered what the mind set of such a criminal would be… I assured him that I will definitely put this up on the website so that other girls are aware and could possibly avoid a mishap with their lives.
He looked at me grimly, “Wait – there’s more. I left BPO around 2008 and started my business but was in touch with my colleagues through social media. It was in March 2012 – almost 5 years later that I read about the death penalty awarded to the criminals and we rejoiced the justice on social media. Everybody of us moved on with our lives thinking that justice had been delivered – though after 5 years of the incidence.
When I read about a similar ghastly case of Nirbhaya that happened in Delhi in December 2012 – I remembered Jyoti Kumari and I felt bad that we had not been able to support the cause of her justice the way entire India had supported the cause for justice to Nirbhaya…
In April 2019, I read about the date of them being executed on 24th June 2019 and I wondered why it had taken so much time and realized that the Law had been sluggish – when the sessions court of Pune had convicted the criminal duo in March 2012 – they had approached High court first then the Supreme court and then the President to pardon the capital punishment and get it converted to life imprisonment which finally was rejected by the President in 2016 – yet I was reading about it in 2019 that they were yet to be hanged. I thought finally at least they would be hanged…
It was 30th July 2019 when I read another news about this case – The Bombay high court on Monday commuted the death sentence for two convicts to life in prison, or a minimum of 35 years, each, on the grounds of the execution being delayed.
They found that the delay in execution of death penalty in the matter was undue, inordinate and unreasonable… the bench was quoted, commenting on the delay of more than four years in executing the accused. This included two years taken to process the mercy pleas sent to the governor of Maharashtra.
The bench held that delay in execution of convicts by any arm of the state would be violate the fundamental rights of the accused and the extra, or additional, punishment resulting from such an avoidable delay cannot be legalised, because it is on account of the undue time taken by a Constitutional functionary.
Till date I don’t know if the criminals in this case have actually been hung by the judiciary and there is no news about them. Also, simple citizens like us – who will give us the information if the criminals involved have been hung till death or are still alive somewhere in some jail… now it’s about 18 years since the incidence took place and we still are in dark. Can anyone tell us what the status is as of today? The court has done its job by handing out the death sentence – but has it actually been carried out by whoever is supposed to do so? I don’t know and so do the others who have been in touch with Jyoti Kumari don’t know… This means – in about 17 more years, if they have not been hung they will be released from jail having completed the term of their sentence. They will lead a normal life after having brutally raped and killed an innocent girl.”
He looked at me sadly shaking his head in frustration, “I can only hope that people like you can spread the word around and make someone wake up to be answerable – which I doubt…”
Then he looked at me and made an appeal to girls, “I also want you to tell girls who you know and who you may meet…
- Please don’t take life easy – you don’t know how the person you meet may act – he could be a killer.
- When travelling in a cab – please be alert – chatting away on phone doesn’t help or trying to catch up on sleep while travelling in an unknown cab is sure way to get in trouble someday.”
He looked at me and folded his hands in his pleading and requested me to take it forward from here and write something about this incident which may help people know what that status is as of today. He said bye to me when we approached his destination and reminded me and wanted to see the write-up which even he could forward to people.
And I carried on to my destination thinking about what I had heard and thinking what kind of punishment will deter anyone from even thinking of carrying out such a crime. Capital punishment in my view is not enough – the punishment for such crimes should be held in public and should be barbaric enough to scare any such thoughts in minds of anyone.
What is your say on this – let me know…
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- Prasad Deshpandehttps://storiesandme.com/author/prasad/
- Prasad Deshpandehttps://storiesandme.com/author/prasad/