The deadly price of domestic violence

Chitra Ramakrishnan

Chitra Ramakrishnan was kneeling at the kitchen shrine when the brick hit her. It gashed the skin on the top of her head, knocking her sideways, then slammed into her forehead, peeling back the skin, so her skull gleamed through the blood.

Then, as she scrabbled towards the phone to call the police, her husband grabbed her from behind, yanked back her neck and slit her throat from ear to ear.

For a small man, Laxman Rajamani was extraordinarily powerful. The cut, it turned out, was delivered with such force the 30cm knife sliced through the cartilage of Chitra's voice box, through her oesophagus, finally severing, but not quite cutting through, her carotid artery.

The blood pooled under their dining room table, soaked the floral carpet and Laxman's jeans, spattered the walls. It also ran into the 32-year-old Chitra's lungs, killing her within minutes.

When Detective James Cassin interviewed the 35-year-old Laxman 36 hours later at Auckland Central Police Station, he claimed to have lost his senses. He did however, have the presence of mind to answer the text that bleeped on his wife's phone from her boss at Pacific Retail Finance: "R u coming to work?"

"No," he tapped. "I'm not well, not coming."

He also realised he had better get the body out of the way. He wrapped Chitra in a blanket but she was too heavy, wet and slippery. He tried a second blanket, slipping it under her, which allowed him to drag the slender 55kg body up the stairs and flop it, face down, on the queen-sized bed.

As the evidence would show, he then washed the knife and left it in the sink, dropped the bricks in the bushes outside, changed his already stiffening jeans and after a snooze on the couch, left their Mt Eden flat in the dark blue Ford Mondeo Chitra normally drove.

By early evening on Thursday, January 13, 2005, he was back with cigarettes and 70 litres of petrol in six red plastic jerry cans. Some went under the dining room table where he had covered the blood with pieces of carpet, others upstairs near the bedroom, still more in the kitchen near the shrine.

He also had an economy class ticket to India, departing lunchtime on Saturday.

The day started ordinarily enough for Chitra. True, her husband had decided not to go into his job as assistant accountant with American Express in Symonds St, but then he was depressed after being passed over for promotion.

Part of the wave of middle-class Indians who travel the globe searching for a better life, Laxman and Chitra were ambitious. Both were born in Bombay (now Mumbai), he on July 1, 1970, she on November 17, two years later.

Both came from middle-to-average-class families. Laxman, the son of an import/exporter for a Swedish firm and a traditional mother, was one of four boys and one of triplets. He graduated in accountancy in India and came to New Zealand in 2001 looking for adventure, freedom and money.

Chitra was less socially advantaged. Her father couldn't afford a lavish wedding or a dowry, but his daughter was pretty and intelligent. According to her new husband, Chitra came to New Zealand for a permanent resident's visa that could take her to Australia.

Between them they accumulated the trappings of the middle class: cool cell phones, nice car, label clothes, broadband computer connection. What neither had was a clear understanding of the culture and conventions of their adopted country: the role of women, the place of religion; attitudes towards family.

And Laxman was plainly frustrated by his wife. Their arranged marriage, on November 24, 2002, had been a day-and-a-half affair - 400 guests, the traditional Hindu ceremony with the ankle-length loincloth or dhoti for him, the 11m sari for her, the mangalsutra or religious thread tied by the husband round his bride's neck. The marriage forever.

Now she refused to act the submissive Indian wife.

The bubbly, pretty and highly intelligent Chitra had worked for nine years in Dubai at the fancy Jumeirah Beach Hotel, which gleams on the skyline like a breaking wave, and employs 600 foreigners in the staff hostel.

She plainly loved the job and after the wedding, chose to return to Dubai rather than help Laxman set up house in New Zealand.

By the time she arrived to start married life it was almost a year later. She was 30 now, experienced in Western ways and independent. Her husband was quieter, family-oriented, traditional. He liked cricket and beer.

Within months there was friction. Chitra, who had come on a visitor's permit, had trouble getting a decent job, which irritated her husband. There were the kind of arguments common between a sophisticated woman and a highly traditional man: control of money; whether cooking was indeed a woman's job; who did the cleaning; Laxman's drinking.

Then there were the uniquely Indian problems. How much her father owed Laxman for the dowry (and why he brought the subject up on their wedding night). The $7000 he borrowed to help with expenses for a sick aunt in Mumbai.

Laxman's triplet brother, Mahesh, constantly thumbing a matchbox-sized Indian chanting prayer book, explains. Mahesh's 2000-guest wedding in Hyderabad, courtesy of his wife's family, had been lavish.

"[Chitra's parents] were stingy, very stingy but we didn't care because the boy and girl were happy," he says. "The girl used him only for the visa. We knew the background of the family, but not her - that's how we got jacked!

"We are a middle to average family. The only thing [our parents] give us is a good education and good behaviours, respect for elders - that sort of stuff."

While Laxman wandered around in his jeans and nightshirt downstairs, Chitra dressed for work. Her outfit was nothing provocative: grey trousers, a grey, sleeveless, Giordano top and jacket, a necklace and pink underwear. They'd stopped sleeping together months ago. He had the couch now, she the bedroom. By the time she saw him that day it was 6.30am and she was fully dressed.

Disillusionment turned to fear. Chitra approached the Shakti Asian Women's Centre in Onehunga for protection. A Queen's Birthday trip to Rotorua with their friends Shoba Ramachandran Iyer and her husband descended into arguments, insults and anger until, finally, Laxman threw everyone out of the car.

"He said he was going to divorce her as soon as they reached Auckland," says Shoba.

A couple of weeks later, on June 16, Laxman slapped Chitra on the cheek with a carving knife, and she called the police.

His excuse? "I handed her the knife as protection against me if I attack her." She did not press charges.

He, on the other hand, decided he had had enough. There were phone calls to India, cries of dismay from both families. It appears, for Chitra's family especially, divorce was unthinkable.

Although their daughter's wedding was modest by Indian standards, it had been public and respectable. More important, Chitra's younger sister was not yet married. A divorced sibling would ensure she never got the chance.

Laxman, to his credit, made clumsy attempts to reconcile. He phoned Natasha Lewis, who Chitra had known in Dubai.

"He wanted to have my husband and me as mediators," remembers Lewis, describing an excruciating evening with Laxman going through a list of 20 reasons why marriages fail "and illustrating each point with an example from their own situation."

Chitra stayed silent.

Some time in October she got permanent residency and on November 8, a decent job in Pacific Retail Finance's call centre. She was on commission now, doing far better than in her previous two part-time jobs, and an observer could have expected her to become emotionally and mentally stronger.

As it was, a line-up of witnesses chronicled a marriage descending into hell: just before Christmas police suggested Chitra stay with Shoba Iyer overnight for her own safety. Laxman arrived to pick her up at 6am the next day.

By Christmas Day 2004, says Shoba, although the outright aggression had stopped, the atmosphere was ice-cold.

"You could sense the tension."

The urgent messages on the phones of Century21 agent Jennifer Burrett, on January 9 and 10, point to crisis. "She [Chitra] needed a one-bedroom flat urgently. Her husband was going to kill her, the police were involved."

Chitra gets up from the dining table and pulls the mobile phone from her purse. "If you harm me now, I'll call the cops. Get out."

By now Chitra had met Shaa Rabbani, a Pakistani Muslim who had started at Pacific Retail Finance the same week. With his shaved head and clipped moustache, Shaa was taller, stronger, cooler and better looking than the diminutive Laxman. He was also more relaxed.

"I heard her talking ... she was having some troubles in her marital life," said Shaa, who had five married sisters, two of them in arranged marriages. Chitra began to email him. "Where are you going? Why did you go with that girl to smoke? Many, many messages. I realised she was trying to get to know me more."

The office Christmas party (no partners) was, as it is so often, the catalyst for a relationship. A week later they were "getting physical". Another week - into January now - and they made love in Shaa's hostel room.

Chitra was increasingly determined to leave her husband, and with Shaa, a despised Pakistani around, probably increasingly frightened. Shaa was instructed not to call her.

A day off together to look for flats was panicky. "She was in a very hurry really worried about security," says Shaa. "Can anyone outside access this place?"

On the evening of Wednesday, January 12, Chitra and Shaa finished after the 11am-8pm shift. "She waited to drop me home. She was very quiet, very sad. She used to hold my hand all the time. This time she wasn't.

"She left me on the corner of the street, looked really sad. She didn't say anything to me. That was the last time I saw her."

While Shaa may have known that Chitra had arranged for her friend, Satyen Hattangdi, to visit the Shackleton Rd, Mt Eden, flat that night and talk to Laxman, Satyen didn't know about Shaa.

What he did know is that Chitra was desperate to get away - and too scared to approach Laxman herself.

The men talked outside until 10.30pm when Satyen had to collect his wife from work.

"I told him 'she doesn't want to be in this marriage, go ahead and divorce'," he said. "[Laxman] said he would, but only if the families were involved." Although Satyen argued that as adults they should make their own decisions, Laxman was adamant. He and Chitra must go to Mumbai and talk it through with the family. He had already booked for February.

When Laxman went inside he was agitated: Chitra had discussed their affairs outside the family. Chitra immediately switched off the computer and disappeared upstairs.

Chitra has sliced the carrots and cabbage for their pet rabbit and started her prayers in front of her home-made shrine, next to the washing machine, when the door opens. She turns just in time to see the brick flying towards her.

By the time he arrived at Auckland Central Police Station, Laxman had already confessed, and asked, "What is the penalty for murder in New Zealand?"

Now he rattled on and on, explaining why, treating Detective Cassin like a friend rather than a policeman.

His story, recorded on three hours of video evidence, is garbled. Yes, he killed his wife, but it was an accident: she drove him to it. He expected her to look after him like his mother had. "She used to disrespect me ... I did not get my dues."

And then, almost at the end of his extraordinary trial at the High Court in Auckland in February this year, Laxman takes the stand and defends his plea of not guilty. His defence: provocation.

The jury has already endured over three hours of his video evidence. Now, over six more hours he retells his version of events, but with several corrections - and a twist. He was driven to kill Chitra because he had learned she had been unfaithful. Not just unfaithful, but with a despised Pakistani.

As the jury heard, over and over again, Pakistani Muslims and Indian Hindus are different. Muslim men can have many wives, Hindus just one.

Muslim women wear the burkha, Indians pride themselves on monogamy and the education of women.

But mostly this is an antipathy bred in the bone. Listen to Laxman Rajamani explaining why he didn't tell Cassin about the affair early on. "The thought of my wife's body, smell, smile and touch with another man was terrible ... My wife preferred a Pakistani man to me ... When I say shame you should try to understand. I had to tell [Cassin] something to cover up my shame.

"What was she doing praying before my god?"

What Laxman doesn't count on, that grotesque morning of Saturday, January 14, with the body still in their bed, the petrol waiting for the match, and the ticket in his wallet, is the call from India. His father takes charge: "You should've called the cops. I don't want my name ruined in India. What will people think?" Immediately the well-trained son obeys - so calmly at first the policeman doesn't believe him.

Probably because they already knew that Laxman didn't learn about the affair until he was in jail, waiting for his case to be heard, the jury didn't buy the second story.

There were no corroborating witnesses and by the time the trial ended Laxman had lied so many times his word was worth nothing.

Whether he meant to set his home on fire and disappear to India, or go down in flames with his wife, was never clear, though the fact that he bought a return ticket to New Zealand suggests he intended coming back.

On the other hand, there must be some sympathy for a man caught, like a butterfly on the first day of winter, in another culture. A man who plainly believed that his defence of provocation would stand for something at trial. A man who still refers to himself as a "a boy" at 35.

A man whose beautiful wife found him repellent. A man who cried at the end of Prosecutor Kieran Raftery's masterful cross examination: "Where is the justice for the man in this country?"

Justice Geoffrey Venning's sentencing remarks are damning: "While no doubt the deceased was not perfect, you acted to her in an arrogant and overbearing way, you saw all the difficulties in your marriage as being caused by her rather than acknowledge your own failings."

Then, after two weeks in court, nine hours of Laxman's personal evidence and thousands of dollars of taxpayer money, the judge answers the question Laxman had asked back in January 2005: The penalty for the murder of his wife - a minimum non-parole period of 12 years.

"That is all."