Lucknow: Turning pages of her notes to answer questions about the sensational two decades old Madhumita Shukla murder case, her sister Nidhi says her fight for justice has developed in her, a habit of patrachar or constant correspondence.
Madhumita’s murderer Amarmani Tripathi was set free in Uttar Pradesh but Nidhi’s letter-petitions are not tiring.
Every fortnight, she writes letters to the UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Governor Anandiben Patel, Principal Secretary (home), IG (prisons), UP Director General of Police and District Magistrate and Senior Superintendent of Police of Gorakhpur complaining about how they have made a mockery of court orders and Tripathi’s life imprisonment.
“At times, I don’t sleep for nights and simply draft letters to different government officials. When I go to the post office, those queuing up make way for me, everyone knows me there,” she says.
Over the past 20 years, Nidhi has shuttled between five different courts across Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Delhi and testified before the UP police, Criminal Investigation Department and Crime Branch (CB-CID) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), to ensure Madhumita’s killers get punished.
But now, all of that seems to have gone in vain and Bahubali leader with Bahujan Samaj Party, Bharatiya Janata Party and Samajwadi Party associations Tripathi’s influence seems to have prevailed over law, says Nidhi.
“Sayahi sookh gayi, log boodhe ho gaye lekin waah re Amarmani,” she tells ThePrint. (The ink has dried up, people have grown old, but wow Amarmani, your sway remains).
Now, her battle will have to change too.
“Till now, I was fighting for justice for my sister but now I will fight for thousands of convicts languishing in jail. Those who are genuinely sick and need remission of their sentence,” declares Nidhi, the younger sister of the slain poetess who was shot dead in her two-room flat on the evening of 9 May 2003 when she was seven-months pregnant.
“My sister was lying in a pool of froth that had formed under her body. The killers first shot her in the breast – the most sensitive part of the woman’s body and throttled her to ensure that she cannot scream for help,” Nidhi tells ThePrint, recounting the day that turned her life upside down and gave the aspiring singer a mission: justice for her sister.
“As I was cleaning the pool of froth emitted from her mouth, I decided that I will not let her killers go unpunished,” says Nidhi. She was among the first family members to reach the crime spot in Lucknow’s Paper Mill Colony.
Also read: Amarmani Tripathi’s release ties many ends—Yogi’s prison friendship, Brahmin-Thakur vote bank
Uttarakhand to Gorakhpur
A budding poetess who was well known in UP literary circles, 19-year-old Madhumita was in a relationship with Tripathi and was pregnant with his child. Failure to terminate the pregnancy despite continuous pressure had become the reason why Tripathi and his wife Madhumani Tripathi conspired to eliminate her, the CBI probe in the case had concluded.
Twenty years later, the UP governor ordered for the premature release of Tripathi and his wife.
But for Nidhi, the release order was not a bolt from the blue.
When Tripathi appealed to the Supreme Court for relief following the court’s directive to release eligible lifers after 16 years of imprisonment, the court stated in February that the UP government could review his petition.
“That day, I realised that he will walk free now,” she says.
Tripathi was a powerful minister in the Mayawati cabinet in 2003 and also the Kalyan Singh and Rajnath Singh governments before that. He was known for making and breaking governments.
The couple along with two others, were sentenced to life imprisonment by a CBI court in Uttarakhand in 2007. Tripathi remained incarcerated in the Haridwar jail only till March 2012. After that, he was shifted to Gorakhpur jail.
Madhumani was brought to the Gorakhpur jail in December 2008, a little more than a year after the sentence.
However, Nidhi alleges that even during his incarceration in Haridwar jail, Tripathi would visit Gorakhpur for days during trial of other cases.
News reports showed Haridwar policemen accompanying Tripathi to Gorakhpur for a trial in another case, in air-conditioned coaches and having “a good time”.
But soon after reaching Gorakhpur, Tripathi was admitted to the Baba Raghav Das Medical College on 27 February 2013 and his wife followed suit 15 days later and they became exclusive occupants of room numbers 8 and 16, respectively.
“He continued his goondagardi (hooliganism) inside jail where he would hold his junta darbar regularly. At times, he would go missing from the medical college, only to be spotted near one of his petrol pumps in Gorakhpur. He continued to pressurise us, issue threats to witnesses, two of whom turned hostile and while journalists kept writing about this mockery of law, he ran his fiefdom from the medical college, ” she says.
He continued to pressurise us, issue threats to witnesses, two of whom turned hostile and while journalists kept writing about this mockery of law, he ran his fiefdom from the medical college—Nidhi Shukla
Also read: ‘I call him hatyara’—a mother fights against Amarmani Tripathi’s son as court case drags on
Released on good conduct
The 24 August release order of the prisons department, in possession with ThePrint, mentions “good conduct” as one of the grounds for Tripathi and his wife’s release.
For Nidhi, the biggest question is how the Gorakhpur jailor can vouch for Tripathi’s good conduct when he stayed there for only 16 months.
“I pose this question to the CM and the governor because the latter has ordered release on the recommendation of the CM. He was imprisoned only for 16 months in Gorakhpur jail. The Gorakhpur jailor has given a report vouching for his good conduct in jail. How has this come about when he did not remain in jail at the first place?” she says.
Nidhi has now shot off letters to the Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, President Droupadi Murmu, PM Narendra Modi and CM Yogi among others. She alleges that Tripathi and his wife were staying put at the hospital despite their release order. Nidhi claims that they are “forging medical records and hospital records are being burnt”. She has demanded that a medical team be constituted under the monitoring of Supreme Court, which can examine Tripathi and Madhumani under media surveillance because she claims the couple might be avoiding journalists.
The couple’s son Amanmani Tripathi told media persons last week that his father is suffering from neurological disorder and a spinal disease, making it difficult for him to walk, and his mother has depression. Nidhi calls it a farce.
” In reality, they have no medical problem. The real issue is that now that they have been released from judicial custody, they want to avoid media attention. Journalists are chasing them and people are making a beeline outside their residence in Gorakhpur and Nautanwa. How will Amarmani face them and address them when he has claimed that he is unable to walk?” she says.
Journalists are chasing them and people are making a beeline outside their residence in Gorakhpur and Nautanwa. How will Amarmani face them and address them when he has claimed that he is unable to walk?-Nidhi Shukla
When prodded, Nidhi revealed about her father’s death being the first jolt of her life in 1996 and how her mother remained a pillar of support till the illness took over her.
“My mother had done LLB and always encouraged us to do well in studies. Every child should get a mother like her but she has become weak now and is in her 70s now. I keep her away from stress and hence, she stays in another house. In the initial days, she was the biggest support and guide I had,” Nidhi says.
Madhumita and Nidhi’s elder brother Vijay Shukla says that it is very painful to see that such an order came from the office of the governor, who is a woman.
“A woman died, another one kept struggling for 20 years and today, murderers are being released on the basis of their good conduct. Nidhi made a huge mistake by fighting for justice in this country,” he had said last week.
From the petite teenager, for whom the second biggest tragedy of her life came in the form of her sister’s death, Nidhi is now a woman, worn out by sorrows and relentless struggle. “I had thought the fight may be over but it seems, I have to spend another 20 years of my life for the cause,” she says.
She is still staying in her single-storey house in Lakhimpur Kheri’s Mishrana area where both sisters spent their childhood before they got engaged in kavi sammelans in Lucknow among other things.
Atiq Ahmed was killed, his properties bulldozed. How is it possible that Atiq’s conduct was bad and Amarmani’s conduct is good? What is this double mentality of the Yogi government?-Nidhi Shukla
Nidhi has preserved the numerous prizes and shields won by Madhumita for poetry recitations in Lakhimpur Kheri and elsewhere. There was a time when she had even kept Madhumita’s make-up kits, clothes and sandals.
“Such was her personality that I still remain captivated by her. She was a gifted child and an ashu kavitri, one who didn’t use notes to recite a poem. Uske upar Maa Saraswati ka hath tha (she was blessed by Goddess Saraswati). She was brave, intelligent and kind. Since her childhood, she had a habit of forgiving others for wrongdoings. She just got trapped (by Amarmani),” she says.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)