'SHRIEN WAS SCREAMING'

Explosive extract from the book Anni's dad wrote

November 18 2010

MY family were finally all together. It was November 18 and we were in London to mourn Anni. It had been five days since my daughter was brutally murdered. I looked at my beloved Nilam. Words were not really necessary to ascertain how she was feeling. I then looked at my children, my brothers, my sisters, my nieces and nephews. We were in a state of absolute shock. There were so many tears. When we stopped crying, we sat mostly in silence.

Occasionally we would share a memory of our Anni that raised a smile. But the smiles were quickly replaced by sadness, as she was already being sorely missed and the fact that we would never see her again was establishing itself.

All the arrangements for the funeral had apparently been finalised, although we received little information about what would be happening or what was planned. My entire family was still in a state of extreme shock. But looking back now I realise that the funeral was too soon after my daughter’s death. We wanted to plan the funeral for our beloved Anni as a family, or at least be a part of it. Instead, we received invitations via Facebook messages about where we should be and when we should attend.

I had heard that police back in Cape Town had arrested three men, and that one of them was the driver of the taxi that Anni had been shot in. A man called Zola Tongo. I wasn’t concerned with this development at this point, as I was still too emotional to fully take it in. I had not slept properly for several nights and I was preparing to bury my daughter, something no father should go through. I would talk to the police once this weekend was over and, anyway, the media were already reporting the police breakthrough.

On the day before the cremation I received a phone call from Preyen informing me that Anni’s body was at a funeral parlour in London. Apparently there was to be a pizza party later in the evening to give Anni a send-off. A what? A pizza party? I was so offended. How could my daughter’s memory be honoured by a pizza?

Before this damned party we decided as a family that Ami and Sneha would go to the funeral parlour to dress Anni for the ceremony. I discovered later that Shrien was also there.

This is out of the ordinary in Hindu custom, as only females are tasked with carrying out the dressing when a female dies.

Similarly, when a man dies, males are tasked with preparing him for his funeral. It makes sense, as it means the deceased’s dignity is not jeopardised by being seen by a member of the opposite sex.

The dressing of Anni’s body did not go well at all. It was already difficult enough, but the girls informed me that Shrien threw a huge tantrum whilst there. Even his mother and aunty, who were also in attendance, looked shocked.

Ami was quite disturbed by the whole experience. She had never seen a dead person and that was difficult enough for her, but this was her sister, her only sister. Understandably she had been a little scared to touch her. The room in the parlour felt cold. Anni was lying on a metal table. The body looked a little swollen, but Ami later told me that Anni was still beautiful and looked peaceful as she lay there.

Ami had difficulty holding back her tears as Sneha helped dress Anni in a red sari and applied her make-up. It was exactly the way Anni would have wanted it. Sneha always used to do her make-up when the two girls were going out.

But apparently Shrien had been rough with Anni’s body.

It was a particularly upsetting moment for Ami and Sneha when Shrien grabbed Anni’s arm from Ami and dropped it not allowed to.”

Shrien was in a hurry to get to his disrespectful pizza party as his father was collecting him at 6pm. When Sneha told him she would have to go home and take a shower first, he excelled himself in behaving disgracefully.

He asked her: “Why? Do you want to wash Anni off?”

To her credit Sneha hit back when she told him: “I will never wash Anni off.”

But after everybody had left, Ami had the sense to turn her car around and drive back to the