When you see the image below, what’s your first thought? If someone says that these two women are in the jail for committing a crime, you may think that they look so normal and ordinary. Maybe it’s some petty crime.

Meet Gavit sisters.

I got a chance to visit Yerwada jail in Pune. This was the first time ever when I was visiting a jail. As soon as you enter the premises after getting frisked and checked and depositing your bags and phones in the locker room area, you are met with wall art.

Whatever area of walls visible to you is painted with Gods, Goddesses, landscapes and traditional paintings. An inmate serving a jail term there was an artist. He would paint walls in his free time.

Once you cross that, there’s an open area. On your left, you will see an oval (or so it looked like, so far as I remember) structure with plain high walls of some 25-30 odd feet. That’s where they hang those awarded with capital punishment.

And right outside that structure, I learnt about Gavit Sisters, the duo waiting for their death, as they were awarded capital punishment. They were the first females to be hanged in over 60 years as their mercy petition was rejected by the President.

Their crime? They were serial killers. They kidnapped some 13 kids and killed 5 of them. Let me put it this way - only 5 deaths could be proven. It was said that they had kidnapped and/or killed around 40 kids. Since most belonged to poor families, they were not reported missing.

You know why they killed those children? These women were petty criminals in the beginning. It was a team of three people - mother, daughter and step daughter. Mother died in the jail even before the case was concluded. But she was the mastermind behind the plan.

They would pick-pocket. Once one of them got caught and was surrounded by a crowd. She used her presence of mind, used her infant as a shield and asked them if a woman with a small infant could really steal something? It worked!

That’s when the entire kidnapping racket started. They realised that kids could save them. They would kidnap kids and use them to distract people. At times they even threw kids on grounds to cause a distraction. When kids became cranky or didn’t stop crying, they would kill them.

It went on for quite some time. It would still have, had the mastermind lady's husband’s second wife not filed a missing complaint of her daughter. That’s when the entire crime unfolded. They were caught and awarded capital punishment. It was upheld in all the courts.

Why this story now? Because whenever there is an unsolved case doing rounds these days, we start judging people based on their conduct. From their body language to their command over language, from their innocent face to their charities…

Everything is judged by that. But they forget that even innocent looking person can be a serial killer, killing innocent kids. Someone with good English can be a murderer, someone with innocent face can be a serial killer. A mother can kill her child and a husband, his wife.

PS: I have met one of the sisters. She did not talk to me though. I wonder why…

Fin.