By IANS,
New Delhi : Bleary eyed and sounding low, Sumitra Nanda sat by herself in the packed courtroom while the rest of her family huddled together after her grandson Sanjeev Nanda was sentenced to five years in prison Friday.
“It’s too harsh a punishment,” was all that she kept saying. Sitting behind her son, Sanjeev’s father Suresh Nanda, she said they had not expected such a harsh punishment.
“Usse mil bhi nahin payi (I couldn’t even meet him),” she told IANS even as other family members seemed to have built an invisible wall around themselves in order not to show their emotions in public.
Sanjeev – who was sporting a simple brown striped kurta instead of his usual formal-look full shirt and trousers – himself appeared quite calm as he heard the punishment being pronounced.
A Delhi court Friday sentenced Sanjeev Nanda to five years in prison for mowing down six people under his BMW on the night of Jan 10, 1999.
Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Kumar Wednesday found Nanda, grandson of former navy chief S.M. Nanda and the son of arms dealer Suresh Nanda, guilty under Section 304 (2) of the Indian Penal Code for culpable homicide not amounting to murder. The maximum punishment under this section is 10 years.
His nine months in jail so far will be counted as time served.
“It could have been 10 years of imprisonment but then why does one forget that Sanjeev has already spent nine months in jail and that we have already paid a lot in compensation,” said Sumitra Nanda.
“What more can I say, I am a lay person. We will appeal in the higher court but I don’t know what else can be done,” she said while twisting the handle of her fancy handbag and looking lost.
None of his family members or friends expressed much emotion after hearing the sentence.
“I have left everything to god now,” Nanda’s mother, dressed in a pink salwar suit told one of the relatives.
His sister, Sonali Nanda, however, was quite critical of the media and the public attention towards the case.
“There are so many people here in the court today, like day before (when the sentence was to be pronounced). They follow us wherever we go. Similarly, the media is going overboard with the entire case. This case has become more like a media trial than anything else,” said Sonali, dressed in a white salwar.
As Sanjeev stood talking to his father and even smiling now and then, his sister looked at him fondly and said he was the family’s biggest strength.
“We all support each other in the family but Sanjeev is our biggest strength. He is the one who keeps telling me that everything is going to be all right. He has always stood by us,” Sonali said.