New Delhi: Having suffered depression, a heart attack and an angioplasty while in prison, Chotkau finally got justice last month and, on 30 September, walked out of the Central Jail in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh after serving 10 years in jail for a crime he was wrongfully convicted for.
But his release is not quite the new beginning one would expect it to be.
Chotkau was arrested on 8 March, 2012, for allegedly raping and murdering a six-year-old girl. He was sentenced to death on 29 March, 2014, by the trial court and the conviction was upheld by the Allahabad High Court on 18 April, 2016. Notably, the trial court had pronounced the verdict and given the death sentence the same day.
The execution was stayed by the top court on 6 March, 2018, after a special leave to appeal was filed. After a decade-long wait, Chotkau was acquitted by the Supreme Court, which noted that there wasn’t a “shred of evidence which [would] stand the scrutiny”.
Speaking to ThePrint using a relative’s phone, who lives 3 km from his house in Semgraha village in Shravasti district, Chotkau sighs repeatedly as he speaks of his harrowing years in jail and the uncertainties that freedom has brought with it.
“I would stare at the walls of the jail wondering why I had been subjected to this injustice. My blood pressure would rise at night as I lay in my cell, waiting to be hanged,” he said. “The thought of my mother being alone, my sister who couldn’t have a good wedding, wouldn’t let me sleep. My entire family has been uprooted. I am happy that I am free now, but what actually is freedom? How will I sustain myself?”
During his years in jail, said Chotkau, he dealt with depression for years, hardly speaking to anyone. He even suffered a cardiac arrest around 5-6 years ago, following which he had to undergo an angioplasty surgery.
When he returned to the Varanasi Central Jail following the medical procedure, he enrolled himself in a programme Indian Oil had launched with the aim of helping prisoners better their lives. The programme representative recommended him to start engaging in some form of sports, so, for a month, Chotkau would play carrom every day and, he said, each time he would pot one, he felt like it was a “silver lining”.
Now though, worries seem to consume Chotkau even on the outside. “How will I manage my heart medicines”, “how will I take care of my old mother”, “who will give me a job” — these questions plague the 30-year-old.
After his release, he was even warned by his well-wishers against returning to his native village in Shravasti immediately. He adds that his family was intimidated by his uncle and others who had falsely implicated him and had threatened her saying that they would bulldoze their mud house.
He wants to marry, but wonders who will give their daughter to a penniless man who was once a “rape accused”.
He feels like generations have passed him by in the past 10 years. “Every child and elderly person has a mobile phone. See what a task it was for you to get in touch with me. I have no money to buy this phone, which is a basic necessity,” he said.
Before his conviction, Chotkau used to drive a tractor and do odd jobs. In jail, he would occasionally earn Rs 100-150 by filling bottles and washing clothes of other convicts. He studied till class 8 in jail, but knows it’s not enough to land him a job.
His mother, Jannatul Nisha, too, understands this. “His life won’t be normal again. He had a heart attack there and needs a stick now so that he doesn’t fall down,” she said.
She had made aloo chokha, his favourite, on the day he finally came home. “In these 10 years, I have begged for money to take the bus to see him. I felt like my soul had died. So many Eids have gone and he had to stay away from us even after not having committed the crime”.
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‘No medical, forensic evidence tying Chotkau to offence’
Chotkau couldn’t afford a lawyer throughout his trial in the lower courts.
While being questioned under section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, Chotkau in his defense had mentioned that he had been falsely implicated on the behest of a locally-powerful person, his maternal uncle Zalim Khan who was the village pradhan at the time of the incident, and that he did so to grab his mother’s property given to her by her father.
Khan is Nisha’s paternal uncle. Chotkau told ThePrint that Khan succeeded in taking over their land and has only left a few bighas to his elder brothers.
“The case was based purely on circumstantial evidence in the form of last seen testimony,” said Shivani Misra, Litigation Associate at Project 39A and a member of the team of counsels, to ThePrint.
“There were material contradictions between the witnesses and the testimony of the investigating officer because of which the circumstance of last seen was not proved. The defence had led evidence on the motive to falsely accuse Chotkau which had not been adequately addressed by courts below. Further, there was no medical and forensic evidence tying Chotkau to the offence.”
Retired high court judge S. Nagamuthu argued for Chotkau in the top court.
‘Prosecution has done injustice to family’
The Supreme Court, while ordering his release, noted: “By not conducting the investigation properly, the prosecution has done injustice to the family of the victim. By fixing culpability upon the appellant without any shred of evidence which will stand the scrutiny, the prosecution has done injustice to the appellant. Court cannot make someone, a victim of injustice, to compensate for the injustice to the victim of a crime (sic).”
The three-judge bench of the apex court noted various discrepancies in the case — the date and time at which the inquest was conducted.
Further, the versions of the prosecution’s witness also were different in terms of the colour of clothes that the victim was wearing. There were also several contradictions regarding, “(i) the place where the dead body was first seen by the Police; (ii) the person who took the dead body; and (iii) the place to which the dead body was taken (sic)”.
Contradictions were also observed in the mode of lodging the FIR and an “unexplained delay of five days in forwarding the FIR to the jurisdictional Court”.
“Unfortunately, the Sessions Court as well as the High Court have trivialised these major contradictions to hold that the chain of circumstances have been established unbroken (sic),” the bench observed.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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Source: The Print
