On the day of the sentencing, I met the convict, Mohammed Shabbir Shaikh, 56, outside the courtroom while the judge was deliberating over the arguments put forth by the lawyers.
After a brief lull, an interesting matter came up before the sessions court. It concerned an alleged Mandrax manufacturer and smuggler, who had been booked under a particularly stringent provision of the Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act that provides that any subsequent conviction of an accused in a similar case shall invite the death penalty.
This was a mandatory provision where the judge was left with no discretion.
On the day of the sentencing, I met the convict, Mohammed Shabbir Shaikh, 56, outside the courtroom while the judge was deliberating over the arguments put forth by the lawyers.
His wife, though seated next to him, was in no mood to plead his case. “Please write that whatever money this man has made is for his sisters. My children and I have not got a single penny out of him,” she told me, without being prompted.
She said that Shaikh’s married sister was having trouble at home and he went out of his way to help her. On hearing this, I immediately wished I was inside the courtroom as this was a family drama I didn’t want to be part of.
“My children have not known a father. He has been in prison for twenty years now. I was three-months pregnant when he was arrested for the first time,” she continued.
The smuggler didn’t even bother pacifying her. He just looked extremely tired.
The diatribe didn’t end there. “My son met with an accident. But this man was too busy making money. I don’t care what happens to him today. We are hardly even married,” she said.
Finally, the judge called him and explained that the stringent section of the NDPS Act didn’t apply to him since the crime he committed earlier wasn’t a crime at the time he committed it. I gestured to Shaikh, who couldn’t understand a word of what the judge said, that he no longer faced death sentence. His eyes welled up. He was sentenced to 15 years in jail.
When he stepped out of the courtroom, his wife asked me what transpired in the courtroom. When I told her, she just turned her face away.
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