High Court to Sum up Devi Case Today

The High Court in Suva will be summing up the case of Shahista Shewani Devi today.

Devi is charged with criminal intimidation and attempted murder.

In relation to the no case to answer that was filed by the defense, Justice Hamza has acquitted Devi on count one which is criminal intimidation and further stated that there is a case to answer for count two which is attempted murder.

Devi is alleged to have attempted to murder her four-year-old son Divyan and is also alleged to have threatened to kill her motherin-law.

The alleged offence occurred on February 2 last year.

Devi took the stand yesterday as a defense witness and told the court that she never had the intention to hang her children but rather was only trying to scare her mother-in-law, Madhur Lata when she tore the bed sheet. She told the court that when her child was two weeks old, Lata had chased her, her husband Manish Prasad and the child out of the house and overnight they had to arrange cash to go to Nadi.

Devi told the court that the night before the alleged incident her son Divyan was suffering from asthma and diarrhea and she had been looking after him the whole night until he felt better and went to his grandmother. Defence counsel Abhay Singh asked Devi what had happened after she had an argument over butter with her husband.

"I went to cook in the verandah and Manish came to me and started shouting at me as to why the breakfast was not prepared so I told him that I was looking after Divyan at night and couldn't wake up early,” Devi said. "When Divyan is sick then my mother-inlaw will complain that she has body pain and head ache and I will be the one looking after my son in the sitting room half of the night.”

Devi told the court that she received a call from her sister-in-law around 10.30am informing her that Mr Prasad had called her and told her that he wanted Devi to leave the house without the kids.

It was stated by Devi that after hearing that, she was very angry and she called Mr Prasad and swore at him.

"I told him that I was tired of my motherin-law creating problems at home and I asked him to come home and fix this but he didn't respond and was quiet," said Devi.

Mr Singh asked Devi what happened when Mr Prasad didn't respond to her over the phone.

She told the court that she told Mr Prasad that she was going to hang the kids and herself.

Mr Singh further asked her why she had said that to which she replied saying that she wanted to scare Mr Prasad because she was tired of the problems being created by her mother-in-law and Mr Prasad wasn't making up his mind to move out of the house.

She further told the court that after speaking to Mr Prasad she went into her room to change the bed sheet as her youngest son had spilt milk on it.

"My mother-in-law came into my room and started arguing that even my husband doesn't want me in the house and that I should leave,” she said.

"I told her to leave my room but she kept on arguing and chasing me away from the house.

"I was very angry because she was the one who was creating the problems so to scare her I had the bed sheet in my hand and while tearing it I went to the terrace."

She further told the court that she told Ms Lata that she was the reason for all the arguments.

After which she climbed on a chair and tied the bed sheet to the rafter and hung the other end of the bed sheet to the other side of the rafter.

It was stated by Ms Devi that she saw Ms Lata holding on to Divyan and told her to let go of him and when she didn't, she walked to her and pushed her.

"She got up and went out of the gate towards the landlord's house and I locked the gate and went inside the house as my daughter was calling me to take her to the toilet," she said. During cross-examination state counsel Saif Shah asked Devi if she had raised the issue of her mother-in-law torturing her to her husband to which she said yes.

Mr Shah further suggested to Devi that the reason her husband took a cab from work and came home was because he was worried about what she had said to him over the phone.

To which she responded saying that if Mr Prasad had been worried then he would have been home in less then five minutes as his work was not far from their home.

Both counsels presented their closing submissions yesterday.

The state is represented by Mr Shah and Zenith Zunaid.