Unit 1012 Cover Photo

Unit 1012 Cover Photo

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

LIFE SENTENCE NOT RIGHT PUNISHMENT FOR THE KILLERS.


            I feel that a life sentence for somebody who is truly guilty of committing murder is not justice at all; I have heartfelt sympathy and empathy for this woman and her children who will live without a father. But in this case, I am quite satisfied that the government did compensate the victims’ family by supporting them financially. Read more here:

DM murder case: Life sentence not right punishment for the killers, says wife
A Srinivasa Rao  | Hyderabad, July 10, 2012 | 19:57 

"I cannot say whether justice was meted out to me and my family. We would have been happier had the killers been hanged to death. Life imprisonment, that too, after nearly 18 years, is certainly not the right punishment for them," says Uma Krishnaiah, wife of slain IAS officer G Krishnaiah.

The 1985-batch Dalit IAS officer of Bihar cadre was attacked and shot dead by gangsters near Khaabra village on National Highway 28 on December 5, 1994 when he was returning to Gopalganj from Hajipur via Muzaffarpur after attending an official meeting. He was the district magistrate of Gopalganj then.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the judgement of Patna High Court in December 2008, convicting and sentencing former Bihar MP Anand Mohan Singh, the prime accused in the Krishnaiah's murder, to life imprisonment.

It was Mail Today, which first broke the news of the Supreme Court verdict to Uma, when she was in the Government Degree College for Women at Begumpet in Hyderabad, where she has been working as a lecturer in Chemistry for the last 15 years. "What is there to react on the judgement? Though I am happy that there was at least some punishment for my husband's killers, but I would have been happier had it been a death penalty," she said.

Uma still dreads to recall the fateful day, when Krishnaiah was stoned by the frenzied mob and late shot dead. "I never forget the day; but I never discuss the incident with my two daughters who were too young to remember their father - elder daughter Niharika was seven and younger one Padma was five-year-old, though the former has faint memories of her father," she said.

Uma was in her early 30's when her husband was killed. Since then, she toiled day and night to bring up the two kids. As she hailed from a lower middle class family in Gadwal town of Mahbubnagar district, her father was a school teacher, Uma could withstand the ordeals and struggled to live a difficult life without her husband.

Now, Niharika has finished her engineering in electronics and computers and appeared for the Civil Services Examination of the UPSC and the Group-I examination of the state services. She is confident of making it to the Civils and carrying forward the unfinished task of her father. And the younger daughter is doing her post-graduation in English literature, her father’s qualification before he made it to the IAS.

Uma thanks both the Bihar and Andhra governments for helping her to sustain after the killing of Krishnaiah. "Apart from monetary assistance, I was provided with a plot in the Jubilee Hills, where I constructed a house later. The IAS Officers' Association helped me fight the legal battle and it was because of the association that the case came up to the logical conclusion," she said.

Asked whether she received any threats from the Bihar gangsters, especially the MP's followers, during her legal battle, Uma replied in the negative. "After the incident, I came back to Hyderabad and what would they gain if they threaten me?" she asked.

While Krishnaiah's father, a construction labourer, died in 1991 itself, his mother Yenkamma was staying with her daughter-in-law till she died one and a half years ago. "We are living in their memories now. All that I wanted was to see my daughters in good position and they are fulfilling my dreams," Uma said.

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