Rizwanur - A Victim

Priyanka remained in the Rahman household for the next seven days while her influential father started pulling strings of power.

During the first week of September 2007, top-level police officers summoned Rizwanur and Priyanka to the State Police Headquarters at Lalbazar, Kolkata, several times. They threatened Rizwanur of dire consequences if he did not agree to separate from Priyanka, his legally wedded wife.

Rizwanur received threats not only from the police, but also from different other quarters. But being an educated and knowledgeable young man, he was fully aware that unbiased law is supposed to be in his side as he had married legally and as they both were adults. During those seven-eight days they stuck with each other and refused to give in to any threat.

On September 8, the police again summoned Rizwanur and threatened to have him arrested on charges of abducting Priyanka against her wishes, if he did not return Priyanka to her parents. No official case was registered however, as the police knew fully well that they had married lawfully.

In a country where only money and power speaks, matters were to become worse and worse soon for Rizwanur.

 

Rizwanur, the self-respecting young man and the idol of hundreds of students, was also accused of stealing valuables from the Todi mansion.

On September 8, 2007, amidst police coercion directed at Rizwanur, Priyanka was informed by, her uncle, Pradeep Todi, that her father had taken seriously ill and was hospitalized. Priyanka was persuaded to meet her father and return to his Saltlake mansion for at least seven days. To convince Rizwanur, Pradeep Todi signed an agreement on plain paper pledging that Priyanka would be allowed to return to the Rahman household after seven days, i.e. on September 15, 2007.

When Ashok Todi learned that Priyanka had returned home, he signed a bond at the Apollo hospital, where he was admitted and left for home.

The next day the entire Todi family travelled to Tirupati at Andhra Pradesh, with Priyanka, to offer thanks for their daughter’s homecoming. Then they went to Tiruppur at Tamil Nadu where they had a big house.

On September 11, 2007, at Tiruppur, Ashok Todi spoke to Priyanka about Rizwanur, for the first time after her return.

That was a shrwed negotiator talking to a naïve 23-year old kid.

 

Ashok Todi asked her daughter whether she was aware of the implications of marrying a Muslim commoner and the impact that the elopement and marriage would have on her family. She was told that if she returned to Rizwanur at once, the act would jeopardize the chances of getting her younger sister and her cousin married, keeping in mind the conservative nature of the Marwari society.

Ashok Todi persuaded Pritanka to stay with her family till the youngsters were married. He told her that during that time, the Todis would run a check on what kind of a person Rizwanur was and whether he had married her for love or money. He told his daughter that the wait would also prove how much she loved Rizwanur. Ashok promised that if time proved that they were really in love he would himself settle them in Delhi, or Mumbai, or somewhere outside India.

Priyanka agreed and called up Rizwanur to convey this. As she had left her mobile phone at Rizwanur’s place, she used a different number. She told him that she would have to stay with her family for more than seven days.
“It might take three months, six months, one year or even forever. Will you wait for me?” she asked him.
“Yes, I will wait for you forever,” he told her.

Pradeep Todi, Ashok’s brother, returned to Kolkata on that very day, i.e. September 11, 2007, and Priyanka and Rizwanur did not know that they had just had their very last conversation.