A painful story

A death sentence shakes India’s conscience to its core …

A man with a macabre mind gets a death sentence for burning his young wife to death

The wedding had happened just about a year ago. The husband, a resident of Udaipur, chose to incinerate his young wife because, he felt her skin was not fair enough to meet his expectations.

It was a pre-planned murder by Kishandas who used to frequently chide his 20-year-old young wife, Laxmi, for being ‘dark-skinned’. The wife took these hurtful taunts lying down, because she wanted to be an ‘ideal’ wife. The societal norms gives no leeway to wives to protest when their husbands berate them sadistically. Kishandas nicknamed her ‘Kali’ – a derogatory word that hurts women born with a somewhat darker skin.

Indian society is deeply patriarchal, where women are taught to endure their husbands’ eccentricities stoically. To make matters worse for women, those born with a fair skin are perceived to be beautiful and those with a darker skin are treated as ugly. Such irrational evaluation of feminine charm is ingrained in Indian society. The advent of the digital age has hardly dented this prejudicial mindset.

Kishandas was undoubtedly a hideous soul, who had little belief in treating his wife, Laxmi, with dignity and grace. He just wanted to get rid of her anyhow, so that he could remarry a woman with a fair skin. According to the statement of Laxmi recorded in the hospital hours before her death, Kishandas taunted her too often for her skin colour. On the fateful night, he had brought a plastic bottle with some brown liquid. He told Laxmi that when applied on her skin, it would make it fairer. Laxmi had no inkling whatsoever that her dear husband had a horrendous plan to take her life with that ‘skin lotion’. She allowed Kishandas to apply it on her whole body. The toxic fluid triggered a severe burning sensation in her. When she writhed and screamed, Kishandas poured the rest of the fluid on her, set her alight, and fled the scene. Her father-in-law and sister-in-law rushed her to hospital. But, Laxmi had suffered irreversible damage to her body and died on the hospital bed.

As per criminal case rules, a magistrate accompanied by police and doctors came to Laxmi’s bedside to record her statement that put the blame squarely on her husband.

After a 8-year-long hearing, a court in India has awarded the death penalty to the accused. The court classified the crime as the ‘rarest of rare’ cases that deserved the harshest punishment – a death penalty. The judge felt the crime had hit hard the system of noble human values warranting punishment with full legal force. The judge further observed that the accused had exploited his wife’s innocence and blind trust in him by executing the fatal plan.

The crime and the judgement have grabbed the headlines in India’s newspapers. The story has scarred the hearts of countless men and women with utter disgust and dismay.

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