Fatal Curiosity

         It was the biggest apartment in a metropolis, with ten residential blocks and 3000 homes. Prahalad and Shanta lived on the 6th floor of A Block of this complex. Both of them were software employees and their three-and-a-half-year-old son was studying in a nursery school. Shanta's parents also lived in G block of the same complex. They used to take care of Shanta's son in her absence. At the beginning of the year, a doctor named Sandeep from North India rented the apartment opposite Shanta. He joined a medical college for a super specialty degree. His 26-year-old wife Smitha was a housewife. Since Smitha was new to the town, she depended mostly on Shanta for her needs.

        Having celebrated Gauri Vrat that year at her home, Shanta invited her relatives and neighbors to her home for an evening turmeric and Kumkum rituals to ladies. Smitha reached Shanta's house half an hour before other invitees and returned to her house only after all the guests had left. The next day was the Ganapati festival, when Prahalad went out to fetch the puja materials in the morning, he could not find the key to the front door of the house. He took the duplicate key  and told Shanta about the key. She searched but could not find it. She appealed to a WhatsApp group of apartment residents to return her key if anyone had information about her loss.

        Ganapati festival was celebrated collectively by the residents of Apartment so they all  organized a mid-day meal in connection with the seventh day dissolution of Ganesha Murthy.  Apart from Shanta's family, hundreds of residents of the apartment went for the meal. When Shanta's father Raghavendra Rao finished his meal quickly and was ready to go home, Shanta instructed him to go to her flat and rest and gave him the key of her house. Rao goes to daughter Shanta's house and sits in the hall engrossed in watching a TV show. By the time the meal was over, a security guard approached the chairman of the apartment residents' committee, and heard something heavy falling from upstairs. I went there and looked. He said with horror that a girl's body was lying on the road between A and B block.  A lot of people who were eating ran after him without even washing their hands.

        A body of a woman was lying on the cement road. The deceased was wearing yellow salwar and blue kurta. She was hit on the head and the blood was gushing out and there was a pool of blood next to the head. In no time this news spread like wildfire and people gathered around. Shanta sees the dead body and it looks like Smitha from her opposite house. As it is said, Dr. Sandeep  went to the dead body and confirmed that it was Smitha his wife. He started to cry loudly by hugging his wife’s body saying someone has killed his wife. Some of the residents, who were surprised to hear what Sandeep was saying, consoled him and inquired about it.  'When I left the house, Smitha was cheerful. She had no worries. She cannot commit suicide as she is not depressed. You also know that she cannot accidentally fall down from the balcony of the house. So, shouldn't her death be a murder,' he said, 'You are new to this town, you don't have any enemies here. Who will kill her?' When some people asked that, Sandeep said, 'Couldn't some thief have entered our house and killed her and thrown her down?'

        Some people there took him to the police station. Sandeep filed a written complaint that someone had murdered his wife Smitha. Police reached the spot after registering an FIR. A panchanama of the place was made, curtains were placed around the corpse in the presence of women. The deceased's head was fractured and bleeding profusely. There were injuries on the shoulder, hip and leg of the dead body. Inside the deceased's bra were a key ring and four small jewellery boxes. There were five jewellery boxes and a small polythene cover inside the panty of the deceased. The cover contained a total of 430 dollar notes of various denominations. The jewellery boxes contained two diamond rings, two diamond pendants, a diamond nose ring, a red necklace, a red bangle and some gold chains. When the police asked Sandeep  about the jewellery, he said that he did not know anything about that. The police went  to check Sandeep's house. Door  was locked. It could not be opened with the key found on the dead body. Then police went inside the flat using Sandeep's key, there was no sign of any outsiders coming or any struggle. Looking down from the balcony of Sandeep's house, Smitha's body was not there on the road.

        When the police were on their way to see if Smitha had fallen down from balcony there, Shanta from the opposite house stopped them. Panicked, she said, 'Sir, come here and see, thieves have entered our house and stolen our things.' The police went to her flat. The almirah in her bedroom was wide open. The things there were scattered and fell down. Shanta says the jewellery and cash in her locker  are missing. The door leading to the balcony from her room was open. When the police went to the balcony and looked down, Smitha's body was lying on the road below. Police called a fingerprint expert and instructed them to get the fingerprints on Shanta's flat's area, balcony, door etc. Later he asked Shanta to identify the items found in Smitha's underwear. Then Shanta recognized the key with her as her own. Apart from this, Shanta and Prahalad identified all the ornaments and beads found on the dead body as theirs and showed the receipts of the purchase of those ornaments to the police. When the front door of Shanta's house was removed from the key found on Smitha's body, it became easy for the police to guess the cause of death. Police wrote a complaint of house theft from Shanta.

        On the day of Gauri festival, Smitha had stolen the front door key from the table of Shanta's house. In the afternoon, when most of the residents of the Apartment went for lunch, she entered Shanta's house with a stolen key. She went to Shanta's bedroom and opened it through the lock handle in and grabbed Shanta's jewellery and hide it in her underwear. However, when she was in the room, someone opened the door of Shanta's flat and got scared. Smitha jumped down from the balcony thinking that she was trapped. Further, the police got the fingerprints of the body and sent the body for post-mortem. An expert who reported a week later opined that Smitha had died of head injuries after falling from an estimated height of 50 feet. Some of the fingerprints found on the locker and balcony door of Shanta's house were matched with Smitha's fingerprints. Police considered Sandeep complaint as false. In Shanta's complaint police told the court that they are closing the case because the accused  had died. It is said that Smitha's life ended tragically because of the pain of her crime being exposed.

        Smitha was happy in all aspects of her life with her settled husband, be it money or luxuries. But due to her greediness her life took wrong way and had to loose her life. Its human nature to be greedy for many things like delicious food, greed in pleasure of lust, greed in worldly materials  and other things. But human is a rational animal, have knowledge to differentiate between good and bad and then take decision. Smitha or any crime doer probably know they will be caught today or tomorrow and punished for their crimes. But still they take a wrong decision like Smitha committed crime. They think only of that moment and what they gain from it. Within short period of time they want to become more rich and fulfill their greediness without any obstacles. Sometimes greediness leads to gambling, hoarding, trickery and even theft. Greediness leads to misery.

REFERENCE

1] Dr. D.V Guruprasad, 2023 August 08, “ಕುತೂಹಲ ಕೆರಳಿಸಿದ ಸಾವು (Kuthoohala Keralisida Saavu)”, A Kshana, Vijayavani, Bengaluru, Page No-IV