When the 'looters' gave her gifts!
Even the hardest of hearts can melt! In an incident which seems to be straight from a story book, a housewife's guts moved a dacoit so much so that he made her sister and presented her jewellery and cash.
36-year-old Sarjana Singh alias Gudiya's husband Ajit Singh, a lecturer at Dehradun college, had gone to Agra on August 5 from where he was abducted and taken to Chambal.
Gudiya, who went along with the ransom to the dreaded chambal ravines to bring back her husband, not only succeeded in her 'mission', but also got two gold earrings and Rs 5,100 as 'gift'.
"I got nervous when I met the dacoits and my hands started trembling. But the sardar (gang leader) praised me saying I was courageous enough to have come to a place where no woman would dare to step," she said.
Gudiya managed to get her husband released after paying Rs 43,000 cash and jewellery worth Rs 60,000 though the kidnappers had demanded Rs 10 lakh as ransom.
"The sardar was moved by my sentiments and made me his sister. Not only that, he also gave me two earrings and Rs 5,100 as gift," she said.
Revealing the humane side of the kidnappers, she appealed to the society and administration to bring them back into the mainstream.
"The dacoits were very humane. They felt ashamed after taking the ransom money from me...," Gudiya said.
"Circumstances have made them dacoits. Nobody is a born dacoit. Society and administration should take a lenient view and bring such persons into the mainstream," she appealed.
Narrating his side of the story, Ajit said he was a diabetic but the dacoits allowed him to take his pills. "They sympathised with me but said it was their business to earn through kidnappings," he said.
