Chapter 9
Tiger Verdict
The Minister of Political Affairs stood up from his seat when Vasnatha Velautham Madam Vasantha
Velautham , do come in. I’m very
glad you decided to accept my invitation to come to Kilinochchi. Please,” he
said, waving his hand at one of the chairs, “take a seat.”
The portly Principal heaved a sigh of relief at the Minister’s affable
greeting. She sat down in her chair as hope rose up in her breast. She tried to
ignore the soldiers who now stood behind the Smiling Minister glaring at her.
At least the Minister was smiling—but then he always seemed to be smiling.
Maybe he would apologize and admit that the entire affair had been a mistake.
So hoping, a smile of her own rose to her lips.
“I’m sorry for having had to order you to come here, Madam. I also
wish to apologize for the delay in meeting with you. I had a very urgent matter
to attend to.”
“Thank you very much, Sir.” The Principal’s gaze was drawn to the
huge portrait of His Royal Highness taken when he was a younger man. She had
seen two others much like it in the hallway outside.
“Thank you, for coming.
Your respect for us has been noted.”
“Could I have some water, please?”
The Minister looked over his shoulder at Paari. The soldier cleared
her throat and put a smile on her lips. “Of course,” she said respectfully. “We
are at your service.” She produced a bottle of mineral water and handed it to
the parched Principal.
So thirsty was she, that Vasantha drank the entire bottle in one
long gulp. She thanked them for the water and looked expectantly at the Smiling
Minister. She hoped the business would not take too long as she needed to get
her brother back home.
“Shall we discuss the regrettable incident that happened at your
college?”
“Yes, Minister. I can tell you that—”
“Yo!” snapped the soldier named Tolli. “You address him as Honorable
Minister!”
“Grrrr…rrr…rrr…”
The girls growled like wild tigers. Their eyes glared dangerously
and it was only then that the Principal noticed that one of the female soldiers
had only one eye. The older woman jerked back at the growling sound and
suddenly began to sweat. She began to pray to God to guide her. Suddenly, the
friendly smile on the Minister’s face seemed to take on a much more sinister
look. She envisioned herself tied to a light pole and then shot by a soldier. Oh Lord! Protect me!
The Minister’s smile never wavered, although he did wag his walking
stick in front of the fearful Principal’s eyes. “Stand up, you—Principal! You
don’t deserve to sit in my presence. It was your job to control your students,
and in this, you failed miserably. No country on the planet would dare treat us
as your students, your staff…and you did! Not even the US UK
Tears sprung to her eyes and her body began to quake in fear.
“Honorable Minister, you must understand. I had no way of knowing what would
happen. I was as shocked as you! I’m innocent of any wrong doing. I would never
participate in something so malicious. Never!”
“You should have stopped it then,” the Minister roared, as he
slammed his hand down on his desk causing a glass of water to jump perilously
near the edge of the desk. “You just leaned against the back wall the entire
time…enjoying the show! You never even tried to keep your students in line!”
“I was trying to figure out who was behind it. I couldn’t stop it
until I knew who was behind it! How could I stop it if the paramilitary or the
army were the principle parties instigating the riot?”
“They weren’t,” the Minister hissed.
“They weren’t?”
“No they weren’t. We know this to be a fact.” He drummed his fingers
on his desk. “Why didn’t you send your Vice Principal to keep the students in
line?”
“I—I couldn’t’ find her…” She trailed off and then tried again, “The
students respect her more than they do me. But I…I—”
“You really are a clueless idiot, aren’t you? Mrs. Shan
“What!”
“We know this. You maybe did not. Priya acted as a coordinator and
supervisor to the whole thing. You, you stupid woman, will hear soon that she
won’t be available to supervise Vembady students or any other students any
more. She deserves a punishment that brings glory to the Tamil Tigers. Even Al Qaeda
“I never dreamt Priya would do such a thing! And leave me to pay for
her sin!”
“Leave that bloody conspirator, Priya, out of this. Why didn’t you
send the Head Prefect to control the students? Isn’t she an influential figure
among the girls?”
“Sir, I—I couldn’t find her either!”
“She was in on it too.”
“Truly?” Vasantha rubbed her hands over her mouth trying to think.
“Then they set me up. They put the whole thing in my lap when I didn’t know
anything at all about it. You must believe me, Sir!”
“Fool! An apology is too late and wouldn’t fix the problem anyway.
You are the Principal, so it falls to you to bear the burden of making it
right.”
“I’m sorry!”
“Not enough!”
“Please Sir—”
The Minister’s glare shut her up as effectively as a heavy fist
swung at her head would have. “His Royal Highness has already justly heard your
case and rendered a verdict.” He picked up a piece of paper and sat back to
read:
“‘Mrs. Vasantha Velautham
“Though I have reduced your punishment drastically, we still find
you culpable and fine you sixteen million rupees. You must pay this fine within
the next five weeks. Until this debt is paid, you will be kept in a Class E
prison. You will be allowed to have contact with anyone you want, but only
once. If you fail to pay the amount after the date specified, you will be
transferred to a Class Z prison facility. Your Honda is forfeit since you
bought it with the bribes you obtained by unfairly admitting Year 6 students.
The Honda cannot be used to pay down your fine.”
The words fell upon the miserable Principal as a crumbling brick
building might. She swooned , her eyes
rolled up in her head, and she fainted, falling heavily to the floor,
unconscious. A loud thump echoed off the walls when she hit the floor.
Tolli jumped around the desk and delivered a tremendous kick to the Principal’s
hip. “Get up!” she yelled. The one-eyed soldier shoved Tolli away, but the kick
had its effect, and Vasantha opened her eyes, wincing in pain.
The Smiling Minster stood up from his desk and leaned over it to get
a better view of the sprawling woman. She looked like a beached whale to his
eyes. “Do you have any questions?”
Vasantha picked herself up and leaned against the chair for support.
“What is an E class prison?” she asked weakly, fearing the answer.
“E class means you will be locked in isolation for eighteen hours.
Afterwards, you will be given a cup of plain tea without sugar in the morning,
two spoonfuls of rice and one curry for lunch, and for dinner, you get a loaf
of bread with sambol but without salt. You will get a bucketful of water
every three days—I suggest you be conservative with it. Once a day, you may
visit the latrine though you must clean it when ordered.”
The Principal gripped the edge of her chair as hard as she could
lest she faint again. She couldn’t believe the terrible conditions of an E
class prison!
With an evil grin, the Smiling Minister continued, “I probably ought
to explain what a Z Class prison is too. For one week, you will be treated
well. You’ll get ten milk hoppers in the morning, one plantain, and a cup of milk
or coffee with ample sugar. Non-vegetarians are entitled to mutton and fish
curry. Being that you are a vegetarian, however, you will be given lots of rice
and five different vegetable curries and fruit.
Dinner will consist of ten stringhoppers, two curries, sothy, and
sambol. You can have access to the well,
have a daily bath, and use the latrine whenever you wish.”
The Principal blinked, thinking that she would rather go to the Z
class prison instead! But the sudden feral grin that the Minister gave her
quickly dispelled that notion.
The Minister continued, “On the final day, your eyes will be covered
with a piece of black cloth. You will be taken to a prescribed location—one
chosen by His Royal Highness—probably out front of your college. There you will
be tied to a light pole and a board placed by your feet proclaiming you to be a
Traitor to the Tamil Tigers’ freedom war. The specific sense never varies. Then
we’ll shoot you twice in the forehead.”
Those words froze the terrified Principal to the chair. She could
hardly breathe. She couldn’t think. Three words escaped her lips. Three words
that she and every Hindu made use of thousands and thousands of times during
their life time. Three words that prisoner after prisoner had uttered in this
very room.
“It’s my fate!”
The Smiling Minister only smiled larger and waved for his guard
detail to escort the Principal out. “And take her jewelry,” he snapped as they
neared the door. Grinning, Tolli stripped the Principal of her precious
jewelry. Vasantha suffered the indignation without protest.
The first thing she noticed once she exited the building, limping
badly from the kick to her hip, was that her car was also gone. Her brother sat
despondently on the same hard bench she had waited upon earlier. They gave her
a few minutes to talk to him, although the soldiers hovered
nearby keeping a wary eye on their prisoner.
Her brother wheezed sharply as she came up to him. Tears once again
began to flow at the sight of him, and she couldn’t contain her sobs. “Why are
you crying?” Haran
“Everything is over for me. They are throwing me into prison.”
“What? What did you say?”
“They blame me for the incident at the college. They claim that my
character is flawed and that it was the reason for the students’ turmoil.”
“There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?” he asked solemnly. “I
know them. What else did they say?”
“I have to pay sixteen million rupees. I’ve got five weeks to come
up with the money or they plan to execute me as a traitor.”
“Sell my house and everything in it,” she went on. “The shop we rent
out, sell it too. Call Maithily and tell her everything. Maybe my daughter can
do something from Australia
Her brother suddenly clutched at his chest, trying to breathe and
fell off the bench, his eyes practically bulging from his head. Vasantha
scrambled down beside him. “Get help!” she screeched. “We need a doctor!”
One of the soldiers laughed as if it were all a good joke. Paari,
however, shook her head and flicked a finger at one of the other soldiers who
scrambled away. Vasantha saw none of it. She kept yelling and trying to help
her brother whose face she could see, even in the darkness, was turning blue.
Finally an ambulance, its siren screeching loudly, pulled to a stop
nearby and the medical personnel shoved the Principal aside to work on her
brother. Haran
Tolli came over and grabbed Vasantha by the arm. “It’s time to go.”
“But my brother—”
“There is nothing you can do. It’s time to go.”
“What trick is fate playing on me now,” she said, mostly to herself.
Tolli heard it and jerked the older woman around to face the female
soldier. “The only trick is the one you created for yourself. You think you are
the elite, better than the rest of us.” She nodded to Vasantha’s brother. “This
is a result of how you lived your life.” She gave another vicious pull. “Come
on!”
Helplessly, the Principal was dragged away. She kept looking over
her shoulder until the medical personnel put Haran Sri Lanka
She was thrown into the back of a black van with the
windows similarly blacked out. She never saw the route that took her to the
prison, but at one point the driver slammed on the breaks, nearly throwing the
Principal against the wall of the van. She heard the driver whisper, “A herd of
elephants is crossing the road.”
Disturbed by the van’s bright lights and upsetting
sound of an engine, a young elephant stood in the middle of the road, put its
trunk up in the air in the form of a question mark and trumpeted loudly,
causing everyone except the driver to squirm uncomfortably. “Will that angry
creature come and charge the van?” someone asked.
“No. Don’t be afraid. They’ll move to the other side
eventually.”
After the massive animals moved aside, the van
continued on its way, bouncing jarringly along the dirt road. The Principal
could only guess at the water reservoirs and thick jungle they were passing
through. When the back of the van did open, the incredibly bright lights from
spotlights flooded the area, bringing sharp pain to her eyes.
“Yo! Get down, Principal,” ordered Paari. She snapped off a couple
of other orders that had her squad scurrying around to fulfill her wishes.
A rather fat guard wearing dark clothing and with a handgun pointed
in her direction pointed to the ground outside. The Principal hesitated until
the fat man scowled deeply and his hand tightened on his pistol. Scared, she
scrambled out of the van and stood shaking in the bright lights of the prison
compound.
A ten foot high fence topped with barbed wire surrounded the twenty
acre compound. Razor wire ran along the fence every six inches to discourage
any climbing whatsoever. Giant rolls of the barbed wires were piled against the
outside of the fence so even if someone could scale it, they would be forced to
jump to their deaths. At every corner, a sentry tower rose from the ground to
about seven feet in height.
Four distinct buildings lay in a neat pattern within
the sandy courtyard. These were, she supposed, the cells. Indeed, the bright
lights revealed to her some of the prisoners. Many of the dejected prisoners
wore heavy iron rings around their ankles which in turn were welded to a short
chain that ran between them. This made running incredibly difficult.
Tolli shoved the older woman ahead of her until they reached one of
the buildings and an empty cell. Shoving her charge inside, Tolli slammed the
door shut, locked it, and turned away with another disgusted snort.
Vasantha’s new home looked to be no bigger than a six by five foot
cell. Three of the sides were simple cement walls without windows. An iron
chain lay in a pile, fixed firmly to the back wall. The door itself had a small
window with one inch thick iron bars running up and down. Small holes in the
asbestos roof provided the only other source of ventilation.
The room itself gave off a foul odor of urine and human excrement. There
was an ugly small plastic pan in a corner. The floor crawled with snails and
long black leeches. Mosquitoes and flies buzzed constantly and covered much of
the walls and floor.
Her heart sinking ever so lower, she looked for a place to sleep
while slapping at the mosquitoes already biting her available flesh. Her hip
ached, and she doubted she could even lie down comfortably.
Without warning, all the lights went off, plunging her into
darkness.
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