The sisters with Kishan

Dec. 8: Three sisters have married their servant in the belief that he is an incarnation of Krishna and would bring the family hidden treasure through a miracle.

All three women, who live in Ranipur on the outskirts of Chitrakoot town, about 250km from here, are educated.

Sobha Patel, 25, is an MA in history from Chitrakoot University; Pinky, 23, has done her BA and BEd; and Rina, 18, has passed her plus II. They married the illiterate Kishan Soni, 32, one by one over the past four years.

Sobha was outraged yesterday when an NGO that campaigns against superstition visited their home — a sprawling house with seven rooms and four toilets. The house belongs to their father Santosh Singh Patel, 62, who owns 10 bighas of farmland and runs a limestone business.

“We are married to a modern god and all of us want children by him. Why should that bother outsiders? This is our private matter,” Sobha said.

“Yes, my son-in-law is Lord Krishna,” Patel insisted.

Subdivisional officer V. Ram said he could not start a case of polygamy in the absence of a complaint. The town is steeped in superstition, local NGOs said.

Neighbours said Kishan came to the house in 2001 to work in Patel’s fields. The following year, he charmed Patel by claiming supernatural powers and promising to free the house of evil spirits.

In 2003, he held a tantric yagna and announced that Patel would soon find a treasure chest hidden somewhere on his estate. But there was a condition: God will not be appeased unless one of Patel’s daughters delivered a male child.

Kishan promised Santosh that if he were allowed to marry the eldest daughter, he would ensure she had a son. A year later, however, Sobha became the mother of a daughter and the treasure stayed elusive.

So, Pinky married Kishan who, of course, no longer worked in the fields. In 2005, she delivered a son all right but Kishan now said the family’s star positions had changed. The only way out was to “sacrifice” a third daughter.

The teenaged Rina was reluctant, but finally gave in this year and was married to Kishan on May 12. Santosh said if this didn’t work out, he would marry off his two remaining daughters — schoolgirls aged 14 and 15 — to Kishan.