‘Looking at her pic, telling her she’s finally got justice’

Still Haunted By Her Last Words: Nirbhaya’s Mom

Pankhuri.Yadav & Prem Bisht TNN

New Delhi  21.03.2020

: “I don’t remember the last time we were happy,” said Nirbhaya’s mother, Asha Devi, seven years after her daughter was raped and brutalised in a moving bus. When Nirbhaya was alive, she never had a home that was spacious or equipped with an oven and geyser. Her family’s house in Dwarka now is. “Yet where’s the happiness?” her mother constantly asked.

On Friday, Devi was less diffident. It was a day when her long struggle resulted in the ultimate punishment for her daughter’s assaulters. “She got justice today. Through the day I have been looking at her photo and telling her she got justice,” Devi said. And yet the hanging of the four of the six accused does not leave Devi entirely fulfilled. For she is still haunted by the last words of Nirbhaya. “My daughter was very strong but she was defeated and with her last strength, she asked me to get her justice,” Devi remembered.

People thronged the Dwarka house on Friday to congratulate the family. What remains to be done now that the men have been hanged? “I don’t plan to join politics. Instead I will never stop helping rape victims and their families,” Devi promised. “I will continue to put up a fight for all the daughters just as I did for my own daughter.”

It took Devi seven years to finally get some mental respite. Born and raised in a small village in eastern UP, she grew up on stories of violence and rape, but never imagined her own family would suffer the nightmare. When she married Badrinath Singh Pandey in 1985, she had dreams of a happy future as a family. The couple moved to Delhi, where Nirbhaya was born.

“Her father was so happy that he distributed sweets worth ₹1,000 even when neighbours passed snide remarks about the birth of a girl,” the pugnacious mother recalled. “She was the brightest girl in her class and so we tried to give her the best education, hoping she would have a better life than us. And she always offered a helping hand to the needy.” And yet, Devi chokes, Nirbhaya’s life ended not in goodness but in pain. Nirbhaya and her two siblings grew up in a two-room house in Dwarka’s Sector 8. This was the house she was returning to after watching her first English film, Life of Pi, at Select Citywalk Mall in south Delhi’s Saket with a friend on December 16, 2012, when the horrific incident took place. Now the family lives a few kilometres away.

One of Nirbhaya’s brothers is now a pilot based in Bengaluru. He was counselled by Rahul Gandhi after his sister’s death and was later sent to Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Udan Akademi in Rae Bareli for training. Devi shies from talking about the other son. The family didn’t know an iota about the litigation process and was shocked to find the convicts could take resort to so many legal remedies. “One delay after another left us increasingly distraught,” the mother mumbled. “But I kept faith that the convicts would eventually be hanged.”

She is grateful for how people stood solidly behind the family. “When Nirbhaya was in the hospital, I didn’t realise how the people were reacting outside. But a day before we left for Singapore for her treatment, a doctor took me outside to see the hundreds who had gathered in our support. I was touched,” she smiled wanly.

SOME CLOSURE: People thronged Nirbhaya’s family house in Dwarka to congratulate Asha Devi and her husband