What families of death row criminals go through

On the terrace of her small house in a remote village of Chatna block in West Bengal, Poornima Chatterjee sits forlornly in contemplation. In her mid-40s, Poornima works as a helper in an anganwadi centre, going about her life quietly. But ask her about her husband, and something stirs within her. Married when she was in her teens to Dhananjoy Chatterjee, a security guard, her life changed dramatically when he was convicted and hanged for the rape and murder of Hetal Parekh, a young girl in Kolkata.

The incident happened in 1990, barely six months after Poornima’s marriage. Sixteen years have passed since Chatterjee was hanged (in 2004) but Poornima still hasn’t been able to move on. The social stigma that came her way, say her relatives, scarred her for life. “Whenever we asked her to remarry, she refused. She visits us once in a couple of years but we refrain from talking about Dhananjoy,” says Vikas Chatterjee, Dhananjoy’s younger brother, who adds that he had to change his name to get a job after his brother was hanged. “The backlash that came our way was such that I had to drop out from my studies as no college was ready to take me. My father, who was the priest of our village temple, died dealing with the trauma, just a year after Dhananjoy’s hanging,” he adds.