‘The Shabnam that I knew was very different’

“The Shabnam that I knew was very different from the one that the world loves to hate.” Usman Saifi makes this assertion many instances throughout the dialog. The Bulandshahr-based freelance journalist is the foster father of demise row convict Shabnam Ali’s son Taj.

Shabnam, alongside along with her lover Saleem, was convicted of killing seven members of her household, together with a 10-month-old nephew, in 2008. If executed, she would be the first girl in Independent India to be hanged for a criminal offense.

On February 18, Shabnam filed a second mercy petition with the Governor of Uttar Pradesh and the President of India, each of whom have earlier rejected her plea. Around the identical time, information unfold that preparations had been being made at Mathura jail, the one one within the nation the place feminine convicts may be hanged.

The information of her evaluate petition and Taj’s enchantment to spare his mom of the gallows as soon as once more turned the deal with the kid Taj and Mr. Saifi, who needed to plead for privateness from the probing media for the 12-year-old. Having spent the primary six years of his life along with his mom, Mr. Saifi stated, younger Taj understands the whole lot. “But still he needs to be saved from unnecessary distraction and questions. We were leading a normal life but now it seems everybody in the neighbourhood is looking at us,” says Saifi, appreciating his spouse Vandana’s position in tiding over social pressures. “It was she who decided [that we should] not to have our own child.”

People in Bawankheda in Amroha district of western Uttar Pradesh name Shabnam stone-hearted. The judiciary described her crime as “the rarest of rare”, notably as a result of she dedicated parricide regardless of being educated. But Mr. Saifi remembers Shabnam, a double MA in English and Geography, as a caring senior who used to deal with him as her youthful brother.

“We would often travel on the same bus from our respective villages in Amroha to college. When I failed in the second year of graduation and wanted to quit education, she pushed me to fill the improvement form and paid my fees. Once, when some criminal elements got into a spat with me in the bus, she intervened and stood for me,” he remembers.

So, when information of the sensational homicide broke out in April 2008, Mr. Saifi, who had began working with Hindi newspapers by then, refused to consider that a Shiksha Mitra (assistant trainer in major faculty) might commit such a heinous crime. “From 2012, I tried multiple times to meet her in jail, but she refused,” he stated.

When Shabnam was arrested, she was about three months pregnant and gave delivery to Taj in December 2008. “As per rules, the child was supposed to be sent for foster care after six years. As a journalist and as a friend, I felt it was my social responsibility to adopt the child. There were 19 other applications. Seventeen were found to have criminal antecedents and two others didn’t turn up,” Mr. Saifi stated.

It was after Taj moved in with Mr. Saifi that Shabnam began opening up when Mr. Saifi would take Taj to satisfy her each three months, in accordance with the principles. “When she was in the Moradabad jail, she used to cover her face with a veil. It was difficult to read her face,” he stated. When she was shifted to Rampur jail, Mr. Saifi says her perspective progressively modified. “Still, she would not talk about her personal life or what led to the crime. This February, she said that she didn’t commit the crime and that she wanted a CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) inquiry,” stated Mr. Saifi.

“I wanted to write a book on her but when she refused to open up on her personal life and what led to murders, I gave up. Now, it seems she is penning down the details and it might be turned into a book,” he added.

Mr. Saifi reminded that there was no witness to the grotesque murders and it was Shabnam who first raised the alarm. “Police managed to solve the case on the basis of circumstantial evidence, call details, the post mortem report, and the fact that Saleem and Shabnam turned against each other during the trial,” he stated.

The police stated, and the court docket accepted, that Shabnam was in love with Saleem, a Class VI drop-out who labored at a noticed mill close to her residence. Her father, a revered trainer who owned a mango orchard and a two-storied home within the village, didn’t approve of the connection. On the night time of April 14, 2008, Shabnam blended sleeping capsules within the meals of her father, mom, two brothers, sister-in-law and a cousin. She known as Saleem, who axed the drugged household. Shabnam throttled the toddler.

Mr. Saifi stated the angst towards Shabnam is so sturdy within the area that any reduction for Shabnam wouldn’t be supported. “Even my relationship with her and my intention for taking the custody of Taj is questioned,” he stated, including that he had little interest in the property of Shabnam’s household. “I want to keep Taj away from it. It [the property] never proved fruitful for anybody.”