A Hindu, a Muslim and a doomed love story

Abhishek Sharan/Express News Service
Posted online: Monday, May 17, 2004 at 1144 hours IST
Updated: Saturday, July 03, 2004 at 1426 hours IST

Mumbai, May 17: Almost a week after the two are gone, nobody at the Milind Nagar shanty-town in Powai is tired of talking about them.

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In hushed whispers and dramatic undertones, the story of their ‘‘affair’’ makes its way around the 2,000-odd shanties and its cosmopolitan population. He was 26 and married. She was just 19. Their families hated each other with the spite reserved for Bollywood enemies. And sadly and most significantly they knew their love was doomed. For he was Vinod Ingale, born a Hindu and in love with Gulshan Khan, daughter of a devout Muslim family.

Late on Monday night, hours after the duo was discovered missing, agitated relatives broke into Vinod’s one room shanty in Milind Nagar his family stays in another shanty a couple of metres away and caught them, inches away from each other and hanging from a ceiling-rod.

They had hung themselves from two ends of a single nylon cord, facing each other. No suicide note was found by the Powai police.

Vinod’s friend Jagdish says their bodies dangled ‘‘for hours’’, Vinod in his favourite black t-shirt and grey shorts, she in a light night suit. As the police completed their formalities, the two families spat fire and wagged accusing fingers at each other.

On Friday afternoon, Sunday Gulshan’s father Habibullah (55) is away at his small betelnut shop, but her mother Munira (50) is still grieving at home. She whispers that two years ago, her daughter had told Vinod it wouldn’t work. ‘‘She was a Muslim, he a Hindu. Their destinies were separate,’’ she says.

Vinod, a Std X dropout and peon with an electronic goods manufacturing firm at SEEPZ, Andheri, with a salary of Rs 2,000 per month, heeded Gulshan’s advice and married Anita (19). They even had a baby girl, Prerana, now almost two years old.

How things came to such a pass is the subject of the latest bitter dispute between the already feuding families.

Vinod’s mother Nirmala (44) and Anita can’t believe the family’s only breadwinner is gone. ‘‘Everything was so normal,’’ Nirmala whimpers.

Just a few days ago, he’d bought a colour television set, so his teenage sisters wouldn’t have to watch daily soaps at the neighbour’s.

Munira says Gulshan took money from her that evening to enroll in a computer course. ‘‘How can a girl who offered namaz five times a day end up hanging with a rowdy like Vinod?’’ she asks bitterly, then alleging that the Ingales killed her daughter ‘‘and maybe Vinod too’’.

Munira’s allegations find support in her son-in-law Abdul Majid Sheikh. He says Vinod met Gulshan secretly at 8.30 pm that night and took her away by force.

But the postmortem reports from Rajawadi Hospital, Ghatkopar, are dismissive of these claims—‘‘asphyxia due to hanging,’’ it says.

Vinod’s friend hints that it was the Khan family’s resolute opposition to the relationship ‘‘on religious grounds’’ that led to the double suicide. Vinod was exceedingly headstrong and moody, he says, and could have taken the drastic decision ‘‘in desperation’’.

Investigating Officer Police Sub-Inspector A Malche could not be contacted, but another official at the Powai police station said investigations are on.

(With inputs from Karen Alfred)

Taken from http://www.expressindia.com/news/fullstory.php?newsid=31515