Uma Singh's mother receiving death threats

ANAKPUR, Jan 15: The threats slain journalist Uma Singh used to face to withdraw a complaint about the disappearance of her father and brother has now come to hound her mother. Fifty-six-year-old Sushila is receiving threats to withdraw the murder complaint she filed to get the killers of her daughter punished by the court of law.

Ever since Uma´s murder, Sushila has been shifting quarters for safety concerns. She sometimes lives with her older daughter and sometimes with nephews and nieces, scuttling between Khutauna and Hajoipur in Bihar, India. The murder complaint has forced her into a nomadic existence.

Sushila says she has been receiving warnings from the family members of her daughter-in-law and also from villagers to either withdraw the case or be ready to suffer the fate of her daughter. Local administration has not provided her with security. The police have not even been able to nab people accused of murdering Uma though the murder complaint categorically mentions their names.

"Delay in getting the justice would have been understandable had the killers not been identified. But there is a court case that clearly mentions the name of the culprits," Sushila said. "It has been two years since the complaint was lodged, nothing has been done so far."

When Sushila arrived in Janakpur for a day a week ago to attend a function organized to mark the second death anniversary of Uma, a lawyer said, "In similar cases in the past, despite the presence of ample evidences, police have colluded with the culprits and even defied court orders." The lawyer suggested that Uma´s case could follow a similar course. Sushila was furious when she heard that her absence had weakened the court case. "Police did not provide me enough security so that I could appear in court. Nobody informed me that my absence would weaken the case," she said angrily.

Sushila has claimed that Uma´s sister-in-law Lalita Singh masterminded the murder. "When Uma was alive, Lalita and her father used to threaten me that they would capture all my property. They even tortured her physically and mentally. Eventually, they killed her," she said, sobbing.

Uma was gruesomely murdered on January 11, 2009. Sushila filed a murder case at the District Court of Dhanusha naming alleging 14 people of the murder. Of them, four were sent to custody following a decision by the court. Another person arrested was granted bail later and yet another one was let out on a common date paying just Rs 20. Eight others, however, have been at large since the crime. According to District Police Office Dhanusha, among those who are at large, three are residents of Siraha and five are Indians.

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