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I'm 70, she's five. What is her future? |
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By: Vinod Kumar Menon |
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Date:
2008-10-25 |
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Place: Mumbai |
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Chin up: Poornima Goswami comforts Aahana who has been unable to cope with Anindita's (below) death. The Reliance exec was the only earning member. pic/vinod kumar menon |
 | "I want him punished.
I want to spit on his face.
I want to ask him why he
murdered my daughter.
Why did he kill the only earning member in my family?
Who will take care of her handicapped daughter?"
Poornima Goswami (70), a heart patient and Anindita Misra's mother, weeps even as she asks these questions. Anindita was killed on the evening of October 16, a few metres from the Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City, where she worked as an assistant human resource manager. Her colleague, Jacob Simon Pinto (32), has been arrested and remanded to police custody till October 28. Anindita, a single mother, has a daughter, Aahana (5), who is spastic.
This is the devastated mother's story.
"At 7.30 pm that day [October 16, when Anindita was murdered], I called my daughter. She was still in office. She said she was very busy working on an induction programme and wanted to complete the job before leaving for the day.
When she did not come home till 8 pm, I called her again and a stranger came on the line and after confirming my identity said my daughter was injured and bleeding. I feared the worst and with a neighbour's help, I rushed to Koparkhairne. She had been taken to a dispensary inside her office, but by then it was all over.
Why didn't she listen?
Had she listened to me, she would have been alive today. Just a day before the murder, Anindita told me that as she was leaving office, a bearded man wearing a cap, tried to grab her bag. She quickly climbed into a rickshaw and as the men came closer, she saw he was Jacob Pinto.
I told her to lodge a police complaint, but she refused stating that if the police arrested Jacob, he would get bail and harm the family. Just a few days before the murder, Pinto came home at 6.30 am. Pinto pulled Anindita out of the bathroom and tried to slit her wrist with a knife. It was then that she complained to her company that Pinto was harassing her.
Her daughter, her life
Anindita had reason to celebrate, as he had been promoted recently. She wanted to grow as a person and as a professional.
Her life was devoted to her daughter, Aahana, who she loved to bits. Aahana is devastated. She has not been
able to cope and has been hospitalised. I'm worried about her future. Who will take care of her?
Early marriage
Anindita got married at just 18, soon after her HSc, to Manish Misra. You could call it a love and an arranged marriage. Manish said he was a CA and had a business in Durgapur in West Bengal.
Anindita did her BA Honours and found a teaching job at a school. She also learnt German, as she always wanted to be an airhostess, but I dissuaded her - it was too risky. And now, when I think about it⦠|
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