Sunita, who does not believe she will get the money back from her brother-in-law, refused to leave until her brother -- who was injured from chest downwards -- was discharged. She is glad she held on to Sheetal's compensation cheque of Rs 50,000, though her jeth (husband's elder brother) wanted her to hand over that cheque as well.
Sunita's father, who is now in Mumbai to help his daughter, says, "When her jeth came to know Upendra had died, he got ready to go to the village. He said, 'Ab hamara kaun hain yahan (Who do I have left here?)'. He behaved as if he had no relationship left with his younger brother's wife and daughter."
He took Upendra's death certificate with him as well. "When we got the body," recalls Faujdar Singh Yadav, Sunita's father, "he dissuaded us from coming for the funeral. Your daughter needs you here, he told us. We will look after all the arrangements, he said."
Yadav says he felt grateful then, and touched by the seeming concern for his daughter, who was devastated by the news of her husband's untimely death. Later, he realised what had happened. Upendra's brother obtained the death certificate and now refuses to hand it over.
It has left Sunita in a bind. Her husband's company called her over to Vapi to hand over his last dues and pension fund. Leaving her child at the hospital under her uncle's care, she made the long trek. But she came back empty-handed because she did not have the death certificate as proof.
"We will go to their village and request them for the death certificate," says Sunita's father. "If they don't listen, we will have to think of what we can do."
Image: Sunita and Sheetal.
Also see: From the terrorist's bullets to the altar
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