Barking up the wrong tree

Rayabhar landed in prison due to lack of integrity and common sense among the authorities.

Uma Shankar Rayabhar languished in prison for 11 months for a financial crime he did not commit. Destitute and desperate to earn a living in a metropolitan city, Rayabhar gave his fingerprints, photographs and citizenship certificate to a person he considered his mentor. The mentor, though, turned out to be a Mephistopheles, embroiling an unsuspecting Rayabhar in a well-laid financial fraud plan. What followed was a hellish journey into the Kafkaesque labyrinth that only the moneyed and the powerful know how to navigate. For the likes of Rayabhar, a way out is nothing short of a miracle. Rayabhar’s is a case of an oppressive social structure that finds its victims among the poor and marginalised.