| |
CRIME: WOMEN KILLERS
A Tough Judiciary
|
|
|
ANITA BHATIA, 35, convicted for murder
of husband, SERVING LIFE. She stabbed her husband after conspiring
with her lover to rob him of his money
|
In all such tragic
love triangles, the judiciary, as V.S. Dave, former judge of the Rajasthan
High Court, observes, does not take a lenient view, making the rate of
convictions higher here. According to some sociologists, much of the ugliness
can be avoided if there is greater awareness about divorces. But there
are others who argue that the cumbersome legal procedure involved would
act as a deterrent anyway. Moreover, the cases are often too complex to
warrant rational thinking. Manisha of Baran, for example, admits to crushing
the skull of her second husband Hazari Lal with a "14-kg stone".
The reason: Lal, to whom her first husband had sold her, was a sadist
and tortured her-mentally and physically. The police, however, maintain
she had an extramarital affair with a third man who along with her stands
convicted.
|
|
|
ANJUBALA, 20, convicted for killing three
people, SERVING LIFE Anjubala believed that a human sacrifice
at a temple would bring her family a treasure.
|
Relationships apart, there are the odd cases
in which psychopathic disorders have led to gruesome murders by women.
Anjubala, 20, of Jammu was sentenced for life last year after she carried
out a task she had long dreamt about. She had grown up believing that
she had divine powers. According to the police, as a schoolgirl Anjubala
had a vision that a rare treasure could be her family's if a human sacrifice
was made in a temple at Dholpur. Taking the help of her brother and a
cousin, Anjubala went all the way to Dholpur. The trio successfully persuaded
a couple who were family friends to accompany them. The three killed the
couple and their child at the temple. While her family hasn't found any
treasure, Anjubala and her accomplices are languishing in jail.
"Apparently, the judges do not pay much
heed to psychological and biological factors in such cases," says
S.G. Kabra, a doctor and expert on medical law. Once, on the basis of
a study, he suggested pre-menstrual syndrome as a causative factor in
the case of a woman committing murder but the court didn't see his point
of view.
The rising cases of murder by women has raised
another point as well. The question of how killer women should be treated
and rehabilitated. Criminal lawyer and former Union minister Jagdeep Dhankhar
observes that the judiciary is sensitive when a woman is a victim, but
not when she is an accused. "Correctional methods do play a significant
role in changing a person and that option has to be exercised for women
too," echoes Justice Dave.
Even in jail, women are considered shirkers
and are derided for having low learning skills. So while their next door
male counterparts have access to computer education and a technical training
centre, the women convicts are taught stitching and weaving, skills which
do not prepare them for modern-day requirements. And usually the jail
authorities' efforts to get more enrollments for the tailoring courses
succeed only when a stipend is offered.
There are other noticeable differences between
killer men and women. The women have been found to be less inclined to
speak the truth about their crime. Says Archna Behari, deputy jailor and
the officer in charge of the women's jail at Jaipur: "These women
are living dead, unrepentant.They have no remorse or tears." Their
isolation from society is complete and they rarely get visitors or even
a surety to enable them to get parole.
"That," says Dhankhar, "is all
the more reason why we must have special reformatories equipped with psychoanalysts
and probation officers for killer women." Right now, the jail authorities
do not even get detailed case studies about these inmates, not even the
copies of the judgement. "It is only when we have such information
that each prisoner can be better understood," says J.K. Sharma, the
state's deputy inspector-general, jails. A case in point is how two women,
convicted of killing their husbands, had been moved to the open jail at
Sanganer. One of them, Jhumko Bishnoi, married her brother-in-law Sukh
Ram, a co-accused in the murder, who was also in Sanganer. The two of
them are earning on their own and their children from their previous marriages
are living with them. It's as happy an ending as could possibly get. An
ending that perhaps other killer women are also beginning to hope for.
|
|
METRO TODAY
Web
Exclusives
