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Basharat Peer in New Delhi
The life of the 'Bandit Queen' has already been the subject of a best selling book and an award winning film. Her death on Wednesday afternoon was no less dramatic.
There were hard hitting statements from the opposition politicians and evasive silence from those in power.
Hordes of policemen, overzealous after the security lapse, rubbed shoulders with countless reporters and numerous curious bystanders outside the mortuary of the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, where her body was being embalmed.
A few were crying inconsolably.
Santosh, her nephew who lived with her, could not stop crying. Tears rolled down the teenager's cheeks, as he waited outside the mortuary.
For, the body of his 'mummy' was being be readied for post-mortem at the Lady Hardinge Hospital to be moved on later to Mirzapur for cremation.
Phoolan Devi had sent him to a garage to get a car repaired on Wednesday morning. When he came back in the afternoon, his 'mummy' had been shot.
"I would always be with her. We would go out for a walk in the evening around the whole place. Even yesterday, we went to a nearby market together," he said sobbing inconsolably.
"Had she not sent me out, all this would not have happened," Santosh told rediff.com.
"What would anyone achieve by killing her?", he questioned innocently.
Phoolan Devi's husband Umeed Singh, a small time businessman from Thakrolla village near Najafgarh, South West Delhi was devastated by the incident.
As he came out of the RML Hospital he was shaking and shivering. He had no words for the media persons asking him questions. He just could not speak.
His old mother and Phoolan Devi's mother-in-law, Dayamati said, "I had met her around a month back. And today suddenly, we got the news that she has been killed."
ALSO SEE: The complete coverage of Phoolan Devi's murder
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