Sr Rani Maria murder: Bloodstained hands kissed; sins forgiven

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The killer Samandar Singh’s sins have been forgiven. Sr Rani Maria’s mother and sister, who came to Indore to see him, said they had already forgiven him. The contrite, condemned man fell at their feet crying for forgiveness.

As a token of accepting him as a member of the family, Sr Maria’s younger sister, Sr Selmi tied a rakhi around Samandar Singh’s wrist. It was the hand that had taken away her sister’s life. Her mother Aly Pylee caressed his quivering hands and said: “Let me kiss those hands that carry in them the bloodstains of my daughter.”

Today, as Aly Pylee lies seriously ill at her home in Perumbavoor, Samandar Singh is a troubled man. He longs to be with the family he so dearly loves today, just to be with them in their hour of need. Speaking to Deccan Chronicle from Indore, Samandar Singh said: “I spend most of my time in the church these days.

Had Sr Rani Maria been alive, I’m sure she would have immersed herself in prayers for her mother. I erred in taking the life of a pious soul, but now I want to do all that the sister would have done had she been alive. The well-being of her family is my only concern.”

Samandar, who has travelled to Kerala several times to visit the family, says he has no money to buy a ticket to Kochi. As Sr Selmi who is currently working in a school in Indore built in memory of Sr Rani Maria, is at Perumbavoor now to nurse her ailing mother, Samandar has nobody to turn to for help.
Said Sr Selmi: Samandar is just like my brother. He has been with us through thick and thin.

When I was getting ready to come home, he begged me to take him along with me. But I was helpless, because taking him with me meant looking after him also.

I am not in a position to take care of him as my mother is very ill. He understood my plight. While saying goodbye, he promised he would never stop praying till he could hear the good news that my mother is better."

Sr Maria’s family believes that though they lost a daughter, the void has been filled by a man who devotes all his time to prayer and penance.