When Aisha received her death certificate

The fraud economy operates at several surprising levels. In these excerpts from Scamlands, author Snigdha Poonam narrates the gripping story of Aisha as the face of an insurance scam under the govt’s Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana

- BY SNIGDHA POONAM

AISHA NASRIN WASN'T surprised that her husband gave her a divorce; what unsettled her was that he killed her first.

Sometime in early 2022,1 set out to find Aisha, mainly because I had seen her death certificate a few days earlier.According to this official document, issued on the letterhead of the eastern Indian state of Assam, she died of ‘natural causes’ on 21 October 2016 at her husband’s home in Faluguri village, a few kilometres from where the two of us now sat facing each other.We were perched on opposite edges of her bed. There was nothing spectral about the atmosphere. The bedsheet was crumpled, and a mosquito net covered three-quarters of the bed. IfI extended my arm, it would touch her shoulder. She was quite definitely alive.

***

I asked her to tell me how she came to be declared dead. She began with the bizarre story of her marriage.

In 2015, Aisha had moved in with her in-laws in Faluguri, another village in the same district,aftera wedding her husband didn’t want.

***

The marriage was doomed from day one—at least for her.

***

Finally, when Manzur could not bear being in the marriage any longer, he told herhewasin love with another girl.Aftera fierce argument,he asked herto go back to her parents’ house; she packed her bags right away.Some days later,he rang herup to say he wouldn’t be bringing her back. Aisha accepted his wish and stopped thinking about him—thatis,until she saw her own death certificate.