Lehra Bai, 35, was not present in person when the Supreme Court came down hard on the Chhattisgarh DGP, Director General (Prisons) and Principal Secretary (Home) for their handling of her case, calling their actions “sacrilegious” and their claims “patently false and wholly reprehensible”.

It took a fight of more than two years, but the 35-year-old mother of two, who never went to school, had made her voice heard, ensuring that the death of her husband, allegedly in custody, did not go unacknowledged. The Court directed the Chhattisgarh government to pay her interim compensation of Rs 25 lakh, ordered a CBI inquiry, and said that a criminal case be registered against the guilty officials.

On January 18, 2024, Shravan Suryavanshi Tamre was at his shop next to his house in Mohra village in Bilaspur district, when a team from the Sipat Police Station suddenly drove up, Lehra recalls.

She ran out from a neighbour’s house and saw Tamre, 34, being bundled into a police van.…