Maid was not paid, admits Lugun’s family

`The Police will bring her out,’ screamed a local daily. `Karmi and her son Alvis have been whisked away to Hazaribagh to shield them from the media,’ says Ashok Kumar, a lecturer. Parvatia Oraon, a neighbour of Karmi at Hehal Basti, says: `They are in the custody of their old employer.’ Who are they? `Kerketta Mem Saab.’

Sushila Kerketta, Congress MLA and party candidate for the Khunti Lok Sabha seat, whose sister Nanita Topno had employed Karmi and Lalita as her maids, denies it and says she had not seen them for long. Kerketta is the mother-in-law of Amrit Lugun, the Indian diplomat, who is inthe eye of the Paris storm. If Kerketta is to be believed, Karmi has not been traced since Thursday evening. It was the day she and Alvis were brought to the Sen Studio by Kerketta’s nephew Chotu Topno for getting a `passport size’ photograph taken. Chotu took them home from the studio. `When they returned from the studio, Karmi and Alvis were here. But we don’t know where they are right now,’ Chotu told The Indian Express.

Karmi and Lalita had worked as maids in the house of the Topnos for about eight years till Karmi’s husband, a rickshaw-puller, died in 1997. Karmi quit to become a daily-wage worker at the bungalow of a local businessman and in January, Lalita went to Paris to work as maid for the Luguns.

Under the `agreement’ between Lugun, Karmi and Lalita, said the Topnos, Lalita was to work as a `governess’ for three years in Paris at a monthly salary of Rs 2,000. But from January till September 5 — when she ran away from the Luguns’ Paris residence — Lalita had not been paid any money,admits Nanita Topno. `We used to pay Karmi as and when she needed money and she needed it every now and then because she is an addict to Haria (rice beer)’.

How much have you paid her? `We have not counted it yet. But we paid in bits … sometimes Rs 500, Rs 200 and sometimes Rs 100,’ says Nanita Topno.

She said Asha (Lugun’s wife) had told her on the phone about the September 5 incident. `She (Asha) told me that Lalita had slapped Abhinov (Lugun’s son) and after she scolded her for this, Lalita dropped Abhinov on the ground, took out a knife from the kitchen, screamed and then ran away from her house,’ she said.