Chennai: Red sanders smuggler's wife unaware of his business

CHENNAI: The wife of red sander smuggler Markondan Lakshmanan, whose girlfriend was arrested in Kolkata for her links with the illegal business, says she came to know about her husband's smuggling activities only after being 10 years into their marriage. “Only when AP police started chasing him in 2010, I came to know about his illegal activities. That was when he got arrested. I was sure he was into something illegal because his earnings were beyond his limits. But he never told me the truth," Rita, his wife who lives in Chennai, told Deccan Chronicle.

Lakshmanan (39), who hails from Mannadi in Chennai, has been into red sanders business since 1998 and married Rita in 2000 after a brief love affair with her. Now lodged in Kadapa jail, Lakshmanan owns godowns in Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, and Manipur from where he first met his wife Rita.

 After establishing links with smugglers in Chitoor and Kadapa districts, Lakshmanan was allegedly smuggling red sanders logs to Nepal, Myanmar, Dubai and China. Rita, who met her husband last in 2014, knew that her husband was having an affair with Sangeetha in 2012 and says she was handling his business after he landed in jail.  “I was just 20-years-old when I met Lakshmanan in 2000 and fell love with him and got married. At that time I was told he was into cloth business. But he would always insist he was not doing anything illegal whenever I prodded about his income,” she said.

A dejected Rita says she had been trying to help her husband correct his mistakes but in vain. "He had committed so many mistakes. I had given him so many chances. He never changed," Rita noted. In later stages, both started harassing me, she says. “I have a teenaged daughter. I manage the family expenses with money I get from rent. My parents support me. My friends are also very understanding and now I am planning to divorce him,” Rita revealed, adding that her husband's family members — brother, sister and mother — never supported her.