At 63, Neelam Katara is extremely poised and graceful. It’s been 13 years since her eldest son, Nitish, a business executive was abducted and murdered brutally by power-drunk youngsters, but Katara says she is not at all tired. ‘I may be losing steam; but I am not backing out from this now,” the confident woman tells Deebashree Mohanty at her Chelmsford Road home in the Capital. A pass out from loreto Convent in lucknow, Katara says courage was ingrained in her by the education she received. Asking questions and seeking answers is her full-time job now. On International Women’s Day, she hopes that women can stand up and face the world come what may
It’s a gigantic struggle to open the rustic gate of 7, Chelmsford Road, near the New Delhi Railway Station. After about five attempts and having braved the curious gaze of the nearby fruit seller squatting on the path, I manage to make my way into this quaint villa of sorts. The guard lets me in to the main porch and the mind ponders — what is coming my wayIJ Is Mrs Neelam Katara going to break down often during this interviewIJ Is she going to feel awkward just remembering her emotional traumaIJ How shall one approach such a sensitive topic with a mother who has been through so muchIJ
It takes her a while to open the main door and let us in to her modest drawing room. “I was just taking a nap. It’s been a tiring few days,” she says, making herself comfortable on the couch. She is bubbly and very chirpy, breaks into a laugh often but Neelam Katara’s pain is clearly visible in her eyes and words. “I had no intentions of being any inspiration. We were a happy and content family. We were all friends living under this one roof. It was a normal Government employee’s home (her husband Nishit Katara was a senior employee with the Railways) and my life revolved around my husband and sons. If February 17, 2002 wouldn’t have happened, if Nitish was still with us, we would have been just another family, living just about anywhere,” the 63-year-old mother says.
Her simplistic drawing room bears credence to this ‘happy family times. There is a huge picture of Nitish Katara with that infectious smile sitting pretty right in the centre of the hall — “It’s this honest smile that got the girls falling all over him. He was never a flippant boy who made girlfriends for the heck of it. When he told us about Bharti Yadav, his classmate at IMT Ghaziabad, we knew he was serious enough to get married to her,” she recalls. The huge bouquets that Nitish would gift his girlfriend would often invite funny remarks from his mother. “I would joke with him that his entire salary would go in pleasing the woman of his dreams and he would shyly shrug it off,” she says.
It’s been 13 years since that unfortunate incident in 2002 where Nitish, only 25 years old then, was brutally hacked and beaten with a hammer and burnt by Vikas Yadav, Vishal Yadav and their accomplice Sukhdev Pehalwan but Katara remembers the incident almost as if it happened yesterday. “Call it a mother’s intuition but the moment Nitish did not arrive from that marriage function in Ghaziabad on February 17, I knew something terrible had happened. Of course, we had never expected that he would be murdered for falling in love, but I still felt something was amiss. Two days later, I was asked to identify a charred body at Khurja (80km from Ghaziabad) and the first thing I did was to make some calls to forensic labs asking them for the best DNA facility in town. My fellow travellers were shocked to see my response to the situation. But I was prepared for the worst,” the mother tells you.
The moment she saw that burnt body, she knew it was him. “The policemen told me that they couldn’t bear that sight for long but I stood there and kept looking at Nitish’s battered and charred remains. That’s when I decided, I cannot let him die like this. He deserved justice and I would go to any extreme,” she recalls.
A English honours graduate and a pass out from loreto Convent in lucknow, Katara says this courage was ingrained in her by the school. “My teachers had always encouraged us to ask questions. That is what gave me the courage to take on powerful men and defeat them in their own turf. It sure was a perilous journey, but I had to embark upon it. There was no other choice left for me. My husband was dying of a motor neurological disorder and my youngest son was still pursuing his graduation. I had to fight to save our reputation and get justice for my Nitish,” she says. Since then it has been almost 3,000 court visits and rounds of the legal offices to understand where the case was headed. It took her a few years to just come to terms with the legal procedures. But giving up was never an option.
“My first visit to the court in Ghaziabad was an eye opener. There were hundreds of men in black robes intimidating people around them. They were abusive, crass and looked like goons to me. The push and shove continued for a few hours before I made it to the hearing. This used to be routine,” she tells you, halting now and then to look at her mobile. A group of IIT students are expected to pay her a visit sometime next month to make a documentary on her struggle for justice. “I am happy that the media has managed to keep Nitish alive by their reportage. Otherwise given our justice system, by the time the verdict comes, the victim is long forgotten,” she says, clearly not happy with the way the case has gone on for 13 long years.
“I am happy but not ecstatic. Justice is far from served. The 600-page judgement makes little sense to me. In the first five hundred pages, the High Court judge agrees to my appeal and says yes it was a blatant case of power killing. But they have somehow dismissed the death penalty saying it is applicable only in the rarest of rare cases like the rapist Dhananjay from Kolkata who was hanged in 2005. My question to them is who decides what is rareIJ My son’s mutilated and burnt body is rare enough a case for me,” Katara says, a hint of cynicism in her voice.
There is a slight humour in her tone when she recalls how the judgement said that Vikas Yadav and Vishal Yadav (the main accused in this gory incident) were on a reformation path. “That’s absurd. They have been making medical excuses and going on a partying spree for the last many years. But if they have behaved themselves for two years, does it mean they have transformedIJ It’s strange,” she says septically. Her next stop is the Supreme Court where she will challenge this judgement and also appeal for more strict vigilance.
Has anything changed for the better in all these yearsIJ “Emotionally, I have learnt to move on and be strong around my family. Physically, I have had some problems but they are under control now and socially, I have become more proactive and sensitive to issues concerning women. But when it comes to our legal system, I feel we are still much behind times. There is no witness protection programme in place as yet. There is no counselling for the victim’s family either. The criminal is counselled in the jail but what about the victim’s familyIJ It’s as if it is our fault that our son got murdered,” Katara, who braved many indirect threats when the case was at its peak, says.
“I would get weird calls from strangers telling me that they had tried to fight against the Yadavs but all they got in return was more pain and suffering. Sometimes, there were threat notes stuck on their gate and blank calls became a common occurrence. This did not deter me at all. It only told me that I am on the right path,” she says, breaking into a smile. Her youngest son, Nitin who was studying in Pune during the incident is now working for Interpol and is well-settled in this contractual job in the US.
“Nitin very much wanted to be a part of the proceedings. He couldn’t believe that his mother would single-handedly manage everything. But I had made up my mind to keep him as far as possible from this matter. The moment he wrapped up his graduation from MIT Pune, I sent him to leeds for his management degree. The money we got from Nitish’s life insurance was put to good use,” a proud mother tells you. It’s not as if Nitin did not contribute towards this situation at all. He stood as a pillar of support all through the tough times and even now ensures that his mother is occupied. “I visit him often and am happy with the way he has dealt with the entire thing. Nitin has paced his life well,” she says, confiding secretly that she may have not been able to devote a lot of time towards Nitin in his important years but as long as he understands, it’s all well.
When her husband died in August 2003, that was the only time that Neelam wanted to give up and take a back seat. “I was slightly de-motivated. We had not expected Nishit to leave like this. He was suffering but he was agile. The stress was a little too much for him. My husband has always been an organised man. He was the plan A, plan B kind of a guy. If we were out on a holiday, he was the sort to reserve two hotels — what if we don’t like the first arrangementIJ The Nitish case shocked him,” Neelam recalls. A few days after she had decided to let go of the case and simply resign to her fate, politician DP Yadav, the father of the accused, was disowned by his party in just four days after the media raised a hue and cry. “That was my green signal from God. I was not waging this battle on my own,” she says.
For a jovial person who had little idea about police stations and court proceedings, Katara says she took everything as a learning opportunity. “I have had a very protected childhood. But this murder changed me forever. At first, I blindly followed what the Government appointed prosecutor was saying. But I reaslied he was not going to stay much longer. Then another prosecutor came but the moment he dropped Bharti Yadav as a key witness from his list, I knew he was not fighting for us. I had to hire someone and I am glad we took the decision early. When Kamini Jaiswal, the Supreme Court lawyer and my advisor told me to first fight for the case to be shifted to Delhi, I didn’t see where she was going. I had no idea that it would be such a huge step in ensuring justice for my son. Many people congratulated me saying that this was half the battle won!,” she recalls.
A teacher and education adviser with the Kendriya Vidyala Board at that time, Katara says teaching was always her first love and she was never interested in climbing the ladder and becoming the principal. She retired as the education officer and is now working with the British Council for the English language assessment arm. “I took a break after the incident, because I couldn’t handle all the running around with the job at hand. At present, I am with the British Council. It keeps me busy. I have to go three days a week and work from home a bit. The going is good,” she says.
The biggest disappointment in this battle for her has been Bharti’s attitude who, she felt let Nitish down big time. “She was in touch with me for the initial three weeks after Nitish was murdered and wrote a lot of confidential emails. But when she finally appeared in the court to give her account she backtracked without battling an eyelid. My son would have never done that. I felt disappointed that Nitish chose her,” she lets her heart out, but maintains her poise throughout.
“I may have also committed a mistake. She had asked me not to reveal her letters in public. But what could I have doneIJ People were maligning my dead son and me. They were calling us names and said I had some vested interest. But I guess Bharti didn’t see this picture. She lied in the court of having any relationship with my son. She said her brothers were very loving beings and would never hurt a soul. That changed the case on its head and gave me the biggest jolt,” Katara, who is aware that Bharti has married and is well-settled in Gurgaon, recounts.
Nitish had another very good friend’s engagement ceremony to attend that day and the venue was far from Ghaziabad. But he chose to go to Bharti’s relative’s marriage function instead because he felt that the bride and her husband will stand up for him when Bharti decides to tell her father. “He never told us if there was a warning or death threat and we had no reasons to assume such was the case. I had thought if they (the Yadavs) had reservations against this match, they should have told us. Why kill himIJ Nitish was in no hurry to get married but Bharti was under a lot of pressure. She had wanted to speak with her father on March 6, 2002 but it was too late by then,” Katara says, fighting to hide a tear flowing down that cheek.
It’s the first time that she has lowered her guard — “This happens. Murder for love doesn’t. Honour killing can’t be justified in any society. The battle is not over. I will stop only that day when there is a strict law against honour killing,” the crusader for justice, says.