Life has never been the same for Lini John since that tragic April morning three years ago when her 10-year-old son Ritsy John was brutally stabbed to death by a neighbour.
It was she who was left with the dreaded fate of having to pull out the knife from the tender neck of her son who was lying in a pool of blood.
The accused Aji Devassia may know his fate on Friday when the court is expected to deliver the verdict on the case.
Whatever be the verdict, it will hardly be a balm on Lini’s wounds that may never heal.
“I simply hope for a verdict befitting the gruesome crime so that no other mother has to go through the ordeal that I had to,” said Lini, an employee of a private press, in a quivering voice.
Her husband P.V. John, an autorickshaw driver, had never been to the court at any point during the trial as the emotional trauma was way too much for him. His younger brother P.V. George used to deal with the case all along. However, John plans to be at the court on Friday.
Aibel John, their elder son and a Class 10 student, hardly talks about her younger brother. Both the brothers were to attend their first Holy Communion two days after that fateful day.
“He knows it is painful to talk about his brother. We all know it. So we try to avoid talking about about him,” said Lini.
Five months ago, on May 16, when Ritsy would have turned a teenager had he been alive, the family went to church and prayed for his soul as they had done during the previous two birthdays since his death. “We feed the inmates of an orphanage every April 26 when he was so unfairly and brutally killed,” said Ritsy’s mother.
