I have always been in two minds whether I should write about this or not. The incident is from 2010, eight years ago to the date and we have moved on. It happened with us in Ghana, a country we enjoyed and loved during our 14 year long tenure there. It is not intended to belittle anybody for any lapse of judgement that person may have made. The person has moved on too, and is from what we hear leading a new life.
In 2003, we were forced to leave the apartment we had been staying in for the past 6 years in the plush Cantonments area of Accra. The aging landlord passed away and as is fairly usual in Ghana, there was a dispute among the inheritors of the estate. Several people claimed ownership of the property and each demanded we pay the rent to them and to nobody else. Amidst this confusion, the tenants all left one by one and finally, we too had no other option. Fortunately, we were able to locate an excellent property fairly quickly. It was an independent 4 Bedroom bungalow in a good up-market neighbourhood, quite close to the American School, adequate open space, nice garden, and since we quite readily accepted most of the landlady’s terms, the deal was closed fairly quickly. We had the property secured by razor fencing on the boundary walls and we got our security agency to provide us with the necessary night and day guards for the house. As a bonus, the landlady agreed to help us by arranging a house-girl for us from her village, someone she said we could trust and for whom she readily took complete responsibility. Her name was Mariam Mumuni.
Mariam was a village girl from Obuasi, the centre of the gold mining industry, where she used to sell rice. She could speak and understand English and could read and write too. She was not very polished but appeared hard working and willing to learn. Her main job was to keep the house clean and do the dishes, which after some training she began doing quite satisfactorily, to our liking. Since we were not inclined to leave the house open under her care while we were both at work, she would come in at about 6:30 in the morning, finish her chores by about 8:30 which is when we left for work. She had unhindered access to the whole house while we went about getting ready for work. She would be free till we returned from work at about 7pm, she would then help with the dinner and the dishes before calling it a day. We were not into heavy entertaining or late night parties so it was a simple enough life. She lived in the boy’s quarters, which was a small self contained 2 room unit, attached yet separate to the main house.
Mariam was a smart woman, quick to grasp things and she soon grew familiar with Accra, made friends in the neighborhood, and was quite popular. We realised she had almost the whole day free and an idle mind is a devil’s workshop. We suggested to her that perhaps she could consider pursuing some educational course during her free time, and she opted to join a basic secretarial course. It was going to be over a three year period, and we decided to pay for it as a social responsibility. She would leave for her school soon after we left and would be back around lunchtime. As the course proceeded, there would be days when she would need to attend extra classes and tests and practicals, and she would not be able to return in time, but we accepted all that because we were after all helping improve a person’s life.
Once she finished her course, we took her into the employment of our company as a salesgirl at one of the branches of our Sony Centre not far from the house. This store opened at 10 and closed at 6 which gave her enough time to do this job in addition to the housework. Unfortunately, the other staff members were not too pleased, they felt she was perhaps a mole put there by me to keep an eye on them. I think she also started throwing her weight around and we had to call her off, in the larger interest of corporate harmony. So she was back to doing nothing and started a small table and chair shop selling mobile recharge cards, cigarettes and other petty stuff on the street outside the house. She was okay with that and we also were busy in our work and stopped pushing.
My son Mohit, his wife Viveka and Shaurya, our two year old grandson came to visit us once again in Accra in 2003. Mohit had visited us earlier, but it was Viveka’s and Shaurya’s first visit. We were all very excited and Mariam would often tie Shaurya on her back African style and take him out for a round. We were all like a big happy family and she was a member. Life went on
Then we started noticing a few things. Like bits of money disappearing from our wallets. For a while we believed it was probably we who had forgotten where we might have spent it, but when we started being careful and becoming more aware of what was in the wallets, we became quite sure it was being pinched. We confronted her, she denied it, I guess she knew there was no proof, and while the pinchings became less frequent, they did not stop altogether. It was we who began making sure that our wallets were safely hidden and that she would not stay unattended in any of the rooms where sensitive things lay. We drew the attention of our landlady to what we were observing, but that was about it.
I now had a full time driver, Ofosu, he lived close to where we were staying, and in the mornings he would report at home and drive us to work in our new Honda CRV. I would not let the driver use the car unless I or Tiny were in it, and it certainly was not an office odd job car. For this, besides the new Honda CRV, we also had another car – a Toyota Corolla which was a spare car. This car was used for office work when required and it would be parked overnight at our house. On some days, instead of the CRV, we would take the Toyota in case it might be needed at the office, or sometimes just to give it a spin. At times we would take both cars; I would drive the CRV and Ofosu would drive the Toyota. There was no fixed program for all this, and usually the decision as to which car to take today was made at the last moment.
21st October 2010 was just another normal day. There was a bit of running around that needed to be done at the office that day, and we decided to take the Toyota and leave the Honda CRV at home. The day at the office was uneventful. We returned home as usual at about 7pm, the guard threw open the steel gate for us, and as we enter, we see there is no CRV. I yelled for Mariam, she came running from her room, I asked her, where is the Honda ?, she says, I don’t know, I have also been out the whole day and have just returned. I thought maybe you came and took it. We asked the guard, Dominique, who took the CRV ?, he responded that his mobile was not working so for about an hour he had locked the gate and had given the key to Mariam while he went to fix it. He was the first person to be arrested and later, in his statement, he told the police that it was in fact Mariam who had given him some money to go and fix his phone. She had told him to leave the key to the gate with her. She would cover for him in case anybody asked.
We opened the kitchen door, which was the door we conveniently used to go and come. Once inside we noticed that the padlock to the steel burglary proof door of the main entrance to the house was lying on the floor. Later we learnt that the door had been intentionally left open and the padlock smashed afterwards just to make it look like a break in. We all noticed later, there were no marks on the steel latch, which would have been there if the person had hammered at the lock while it was still in place.
As we moved around we noticed that my study, our master bedroom and the guest bedroom (in which Tiny used to keep some of her stuff) had been ransacked. In the wardrobe of the master bedroom was a small safe in which we kept our cash and jewellery, which we had unfortunately not grouted to the wall. They carried the whole safe away. They also took away all the loose cash, wrist watches and a couple of other valuables which were lying around in the drawers. My laptop, an Ipod, a GPS, and a spare mobile phone too were missing, as I could immediately notice. The Honda key was no longer where it was usually kept, they had taken the key and used it to drive the car away. Mariam and Ofosu were with us as we went round the house, both were shocked, and we were too. Obviously, we needed to go the police station immediately to lodge a report and Mariam decided to accompany me and Ofosu as we drove to the Tesano Police Station under whose jurisdiction we came.
So I wrote my statement, and they made Dominique, Ofosu and Mariam also write statements which they did. Even as we were still on our way to the police station, Tiny called me and she was yelling on the phone, “I am telling you the girl has done all this. The way my jewellery is missing, only someone who knew what was valuable and what was not could have done it. Only those good pieces have been taken. And she is the only one who knew that I kept some jewellery in a hidden box in this room, she is the only one whom I had shown what was good and what was not. She could have take everything, but she took only the good pieces. If they ask you who you suspect you must give her name.” As it is, I was pretty upset and without any proof I was certainly not going to name any body. Tiny called me again a couple of times to find out how I was coping, but I just registered a non-committal report at the station and then we returned home. We were asked to come back again the next morning so that we could meet the chief investigating officer as he was not present at the late hour when we reported the crime.
Dominique was immediately taken into custody and locked up. Poor fellow, an innocent victim, he spent time in police custody needlessly. He was a young lad, had been to school, could read and write but was working as a guard only because of no other jobs. I would often give him some books to read and pass time while he was on guard duty at the house. I met his parents at the station a couple of times, very nice simple people, good people, God-fearing. They were sure he was not involved, and they also realized that it was not my doing that he was in custody. That was how the system in Ghana worked. Eventually he got bail, I think they arranged it, and we still met sometimes when he would come to the station to report as required. Obviously he lost his job with his security company and he was the one person I really felt sorry for. A scapegoat.
Next morning, Tiny went to work, while Ofosu and I went to the station. Mariam insisted on accompanying us, I let her. They sent back a team with us to visit our house – the crime scene – they questioned me, they lifted some fingerprints, and then left. They also fingerprinted Mariam and the driver, which rattled her a bit, but when I explained to her that she works here, so her fingerprints are bound to be all over, she was okay. As days passed and the police made little progress, she became more confident. Traditionally, whenever a new car was bought for the company, it was first driven to our home and Tiny would do a pooja in typical Indian fashion. Coconut breaking, Nimbu Mirchi. Sindhoor, etc. In fact one day Mariam even taunted us about it, your God is no good, all your prayers were useless, you did so many prayers for your new car but it still got stolen. As it is, with Tiny totally convinced that Mariam had a hand in it, the relations were far from cordial, and the atmosphere at home was not pleasant. I still believed she was not involved, she had no reason to be. Just a day or two later, Mariam got into some silly argument with Tiny over some silly thing and declared she just wants to quit right now. Within minutes she had brought all her belongings from her room, displayed it in the verandah outside, I want you to see I’m not taking anything of yours. We paid her off and she loaded her stuff into a taxi which came for her and disappeared. I’m sure it was all pre-planned. We told our landlady, the one who had brought her and she was surprised. Obviously she had done all this without even talking to her. But she said, not to worry, she knows the family in Obuasi and will find out. Not that we were overly concerned.
What Mariam had not realized, that while she was in our house, she was staying protected. The police did not view her as a suspect and she was able to stay completely informed of how the investigation was proceeding. This is important when you are the perpetrator.
For the next few days, we tried to slowly make life return to normal. We got a new part time help from the neighborhood, and work continued. The people at Tesano Police Station had become friends, the insurers initially sympathised with us, but later told us we may not be able to get a claim because the carelessness of the guard was the direct cause of the loss and since the guard was an employee of the company it could be construed as insider involvement which could result in denial of claim.
Just as were getting used to things, one morning, almost four weeks after the incident, there was a phone call. It was on the office land line, not my direct line, not my mobile. The person said he was calling from Police Headquarters, Tamale (which is north of Accra, about 650 Kms away). He asked me if our company had ever owned a Honda CRV car ? I was quick to grasp, and I told him, yes we did, it had recently been stolen and a report had been lodged at the Tesano Police Station. Have you some news on it, I asked. I’m not sure, just asking, he said evasively. I began to wonder if he was indeed a police officer or not, but he asked for the registration number and the engine & chassis number which I gave him . After a brief pause he said yes, we think we may have located your car. I asked him for his name and phone number, he declined to give it to me. The conversation ended. During this period, the Tesano people had all but lost hope of finding the car and were now concentrating more on doing the paper work so that the case could be closed. This was a bolt from the blue.
After a five minute breather, I decided the only way to proceed further was to go to Tesano and tell them about the call. I was sure by the time I reached Tesano, the Tamale Police would have called them too and updated them. Surprisingly they had not, which led me further to believe that the call I had received was a fake. Anyway, I told the officer about the call, he immediately took me to the Chief, who made a couple of calls, spoke to the right people and confirmed that what I was saying was true. Yes, it was indeed the same Honda and it had been located.
For the Tesano police, it was a Godsend. A high profile robbery that was just about to be consigned to the files had possibly been solved and the whole thing had just fallen into their lap. What more could they ask for? For a start they needed to rush to pick the car from Tamale and bring it to Tesano. My driver and two constables would go. I offered to send them by air, but no convenient flights, so they took a bus late at night for the 10 hour journey which would get them into Tamale next morning. They expected to start the return journey a few hours later and be back late that evening. The roads after Kumasi are unsafe and bad, but then they were cops. I had told Ofosu to call me when he reached there, which he did at about 8am. He said he has seen the car, it is our own, except that it has been resprayed with a different color. They are now just waiting for the officer to come so that he can release the car. Ok, I said, call me when you have got the car released. I kept waiting for his call, in the meantime, I foolishly told everybody in the office the whole story and how the car had been recovered. Mariam, if you remember, no longer worked for us so would not be aware of these developments. That was very very fortunate.
It was getting to 2pm and Ofosu had still not called. I was a little concerned thinking they would not have slept on the bus the previous night, and now another 10 hour drive back to Accra. Physically daunting, I felt. So I called him. He said, yes sir, we are still at the station, they are still ‘doing meeting’, and then the phone was abruptly snatched away by the Tesano Officer who yelled at me, don’t call and disturb us, we are busy, we’ll call you when we are done, and yes, do not discuss the case with anybody in your office. That was it. I was surprised as to how the guy who was usually quite courteous had suddenly become so curt, but I let it be. Just told my wife about it. Nothing I could do about those whom I had already told in the office. Telling them now, please don’t tell anybody would have made them more curious. I let it be. I did not hear from Ofosu nor did I call him again. It was a very anxious night.
Next morning Ofosu reported for duty at home as usual at about 8am. I asked him how was the trip, he said Fine Sir. Where is the car ? It is at the Tesano Police Station, sir. They said we should come for it by 10. So we dropped Tiny to the office, headed for Tesano and were there by 10. The car was lying there in their yard, but we were told that the officer has not yet come, we should wait. At about 11:30, he still hadn’t come, I called him on the phone, now he was back to his normal self, said sorry I’m tied up with another crime, but will soon be reaching, I should wait for him. At about 2pm he called me to ask, hope you are still there, sorry for the delay, we are just coming, please don’t go. I was tired, sitting on a bench in a Police Station, in full public view of everybody, not a bite for lunch, just bottled water occasionally and was totally pissed off. Ofosu was also with me all through. The whole day passed. At about 6pm, I called the officer again and told him, look, I can understand you must be busy, but we’ve also been here the whole day, and now I’m too tired to hang around any longer. So now let’s meet tomorrow. He said 5 minutes, I promise, just 5 more minutes, I’m almost there. And sure enough, even as we were speaking two police vehicles and a couple of other cars drove into the compound in a small convoy, and our friend together with some other senior police officers in uniform began emerging from them. He called for the people in the other cars to be brought out, some were in handcuffs, I had never seen them before, then finally, out came Mariam, whom we had neither seen nor heard of since she the day she left our work. He called her, made her kneel down in front of me, and said, here she is, the mastermind of the whole crime. We have arrested her and her partners in crime, that is what we were doing through the day. Her bravado was all gone. I was remembering my wife’s I always told you so. I asked are you sure she is the one? And then he handed me her written statement to read in which she had put down in meticulous detail in her own writing how the robbery was planned, how she had intentionally left the side door open, how she had given Dominique, the day guard, some money to go get his phone fixed so that he would disappear for a while leaving the key with her, how she bribed somebody at the Vehicle Licensing Office to bring out the papers for this car which she had scanned and photocopied, etc etc etc. The clincher was that they had recovered some of the stolen jewellery too, which they showed me, which I recognized, so I knew they had got the right people. She and her friends were produced in court next day, I attended too, and they were sent to 14 days custody.
Usually, the police are always at at the wrong end of things, for rising crime and for not being able to solve crime cases. Here was a nice high profile case all solved and wrapped and so it made for good PR to hold a press conference in Accra, and let everybody know about this big achievement in front of TV Cameras. The Tamale police command who had actually solved the case got just a passing mention. But I guess it was okay. They are all Ghana Police. There is a link below for their press release
Ofosu then started telling me how the crime was solved. When the Tamale police stopped this fancy car for routine checking, it had a temporary number plate. But they found an original number plate in the boot as well, which the guy could not explain. He had all the right car documents too, but on careful examination it was discovered that they were just good colour photocopies. My photograph had been affixed in the seller’s box and my signature had been beautifully forged to show that the car had been sold to him. But, to the Tamale police for whatever reason, things didn’t quite add up. So they took him to the station and it wasn’t long before he let it be known that actually it was a ‘Ghanaian Woman’ from Accra to whom he had paid $20,000 for the car. He didn’t know who exactly she was but he could lead them to her. That put a new spin to things – Woman, Car, Jewellery, etc., etc.. So Ofosu was then interrogated. Did his master (meaning me) have any Ghanaian girlfriend with whom he was having an affair ? How was my relationship with my wife ? Were we estranged ? Was I cheating on her ? Did I have other women friends ? And several other similar personal questions about me. They were trying to imply that maybe it was I who was having an affair with this ‘Ghanaian Woman’, and without my wife’s knowledge, I had given her the jewellery and the car and now I was trying to make it look like a robbery. I was shocked when Ofosu told me all this, but I guess that is the way the police mind works.
Over the next few days, they recovered a fair amount of the stuff, and except for some random bits of jewellery, all the cash, the mobile phone and the laptop, they recovered almost everything else. They showed it to me but they did not release it, they said only after the court hearing and court order can they release the stuff. I was worried loose jewellery like that could end up disappearing in the police station, but it did not happen. The police were very nice, everybody in the station knew me by now and usually greeted me with respect as ‘Papa’. They allowed us to take the car back a day or two later, which I sent to Honda to respray and check and repair and replace the keys. Fortunately, it was none the worse after its ordeal.
After the custody period was over, the next court appearance was due and my impression was that based on their confession, their guilt was clear and that was how the case would move further. We reached the courts, Ofosu and I were seated by ourselves and were waiting for our case to be called. I noted that the cops handling the case were in discussion with a group of lawyers. Mariam and the other boys were there too, looking quite fresh, and I wasn’t sure if they had been just brought from custody or what. When the hearing began, a brief case history was read out, I was identified as the victim, Mariam and the gang were identified as the perpetrators. The judge was a lady who wanted my wife to come in person to identify her jewellery. Tiny would rather have forfeited it all than come herself, but finally they accepted my identifications. After all these vagaries which looked to me like a waste of time the judge asked them how do you plead. ‘Not Guilty’ they all said confidently, turn by turn. And then their team of lawyers requested for bail. As a novice, I thought that this is how justice is pursued, innocent till proven guilty, all the steps have to be adhered to in sequence, and at this stage I expected the police to come out with strong arguments opposing this. Instead, the same person who had been telling me we will make sure they will spend many years in jail, now said something wishy washy, and the case was adjourned till a further date and bail granted.
I was disgusted. So this is how the wheels of justice are going to move. Obviously, there is not going to be any logical conclusion, it’s going to be no more than a charade. And come to think of it, where are are they getting the money for all these high flying lawyers ? What is going on ? I still haven’t figured that out. And then I thought to myself, my car and most of my stolen stuff has been recovered, my family and I are safe, by God’s grace there has been no violence in this crime, nobody is hurt. I also realized that at the end of the day, it was me who is the outsider in their country, eventually they are all going to stand by one another, you scratch my back I scratch yours, and I will be the one to be isolated. Am I really interested in going through all this ? At that moment I decided, that’s it, matter is closed as far as I am concerned. I will not be attending any more hearings. Not that they are going to call me, it doesn’t need me. It is the police who have filed the charges, not me. If the police can get them convicted, so be it, otherwise, good luck to them.
We stayed in Ghana and in the same house for another year after all this happened, till our final departure from Ghana. Of course the entire neighborhood had got to know what had happened and Mariam’s holier than thou image was shattered, she was now known as a robber. She was unable to show her face in the area where she had lived and worked for so many years. I don’t know how the court case played out but I know she never went back to jail. Some weeks later, she chose to come quietly to our house one Sunday afternoon, to meet us, perhaps to say sorry to us. Unfortunately she was turned away from the gate by the new guard who did not consult us before doing so. I would have met her, the matter was behind me and we had moved on. She later called me on phone to say that she was now back in her village at Obuasi where perhaps they were not aware of what had happened in Accra, and then there was some family there. We did not see her or hear about her thereafter right till our final departure from Ghana a year later, nor did we inquire after her. Mohit, Viveka and Shaurya also visited us once again in 2011, shortly before we finally left Ghana.
After our return to India, Mariam called us two or three times, not to say sorry or any such thing, but rather to say hello. Obviously she had been in touch with the office and somebody had given her my India phone number. It was a cordial talk. She told us she now has a baby boy and they are well. That was some years ago. The Honda CRV itself is now 10 years old, and when I last heard, my successor was still using it.
Some incidents stay with you for a lifetime. They never fade away completely. And sometimes you need to come out with them to be able to come out of them.
Post Script (October 2020) : I remembered this story again because just a few weeks ago Mariam called me once more from Ghana. She told me her son is now 10, is going to school and she sought my blessings for him. She sounded happy, and I was happy for her. She also informed me that Madame Agnes, the landlady who had brought her to us had passed on. And that’s how life is. The world never stops. Not for anybody. You are forever learning.