Indrani chose at that moment to wave a folded chit from the accused enclosure. It distracted Bharti, who looked at her sharply for a split second before turning back to Pasbola. The chit was collected from Indrani and her lawyer Gunjan Mangla slipped it to Pasbola. He looked at it, quietly laughed in disbelief and continued with his cross examination.
'How much fashion she used to do.' 'Now all gone in the water!' 'All good things have to come to an end.' 'And all bad things have come to an end.'
Indrani is clearly in charge in her little corner. She is speaking rapidly to a not-very-tall, pot-bellied, balding man, whom she repeatedly, decisively, asks, "Have you understood?" The tone is that of a boss talking to an employee. The words "cheque" and "two lakhs" float by.
Though on the face of it appeared Pasbola was asking a series of odd questions that would be difficult for anyone to answer, there was, it gradually emerged, it seemed, a method to the questioning. Somehow, somewhere instinctively, Pasbola knew there was something not right with Riyaz's account.
"There was no overdose, nor any poison. Her condition could have worsened as she had briefly stopped taking medicines and was suffering from weakness," said Inspector General of Prisons Bipin Kumar Singh.
'It is perhaps kind of easy to see why Peter and the police clash.' 'The obvious air of entitlement that emanates from him, maybe unknowingly, probably gets the goat of the policemen.'
Indrani looked cheerful and upbeat and announced she had quite recovered from her wounds...
Lawyer: 'Did YOU not ever feel scared?' Shyamvar Rai: 'I am a driver, I said okay. Madam said it is your job...'
It turned out that Indrani, who was wearing the Navratri Day 2 green, was fasting for the festival. That caused the impish CBI prosecutor Badami to ask her police detail, "looking for salvation?".
As the weeks go by in this trial, it has emerged that Shyamvar Rai is that rare species of driver whose knowledge of distances, directions and routes surprisingly would not even fill the back of a postage stamp.
So concluded a day in court that saw a woman accused of murder don a fresh role of heroine of the moment. Even Bollywood couldn't have come up with such a curious twist.
The attempts to unearth the document started getting more and more frantic. The clerks began to flip pages of files full of documents, some hand written, some bearing thick seals or multiple stamps, some in Hindi, some in Marathi. Several junior lawyers joined in, perusing different files and dockets. But in spite of the best of efforts the document was not to be found.
On Thursday, Indrani will be obligated to change into the green uniform sari she receives visitors in, as per jail rules, and meet the gentlemen from the income tax department. She may also at some point on Thursday video conference with Delhi in the INX Media-Karti Chidambaram case where she might become an approver.
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