Sherlock Mother

        She was the only daughter of her parents and lived with them in Vasant Kunj area of Delhi. Soumya, who was very smart at work, won the appreciation of her colleagues and superiors and was promoted within a few days. She used to travel daily 20 km in her own car from home in South Delhi to her office. Even though her office officials told her not to go home alone at night, she said, 'I was born and brought up here, I have no fear here' even in the middle of the night she used to travel alone. It was on 29th September. She was working in the night shift. By the time Soumya finished her work, it was 3 AM on the 30th September. Before leaving the office as usual, Soumya called her father Viswanathan and told him that she was leaving in a few minutes and would be back home in three quarters of an hour. When Soumya didn't come home after four hours, Viswanathan panicked and called her on her mobile phone. The phone kept ringing. No one answered. Later, when Soumya's office was called, her colleagues said that she had gone home.

    Same night around 3.45 AM, a hotel worker from Odisha, was cycling to his room after work on Nelson Mandela road. On that road, he saw a Maruti Gen car that had hit the divider on the side of the road. He got off his cycle and went to the car. The car's engine was running and the headlight was on. A young lady was sitting in the driver's seat of the car with her head leaning on the steering wheel. Blood was coming from the head. He was panicked, stopped the other vehicles that were going on the way and informed them, but non came to help as it was case of accident. At-last he the hotel employee called the Delhi Police control room and informed about the accident and within a minute two vehicles of the police control room reached the spot.

     As the windows of the car were open, the police easily opened the car door and took the girl to the AIIMS hospital. A doctor examined her in the hospital's emergency department. Doctor informed that she had died and said that it had been more than two hours since her death. The control room police informed the hospital staff to keep the body for post-mortem and forwarded the information about the accident to the Vasant Kunj police station. By the time the police reached the spot, it was light. Based on the car's registration number, the police traced the deceased's address and went to her nearby house, which happened to be Soumya's house. Vishwanathan, father of Soumya was there at home. Police informed the parents about Soumya's car accident and took them to the accident spot. Viswanathan identified the car as belonging to his daughter Soumya.

    Where is my daughter? asked Vishwanathan. Police informed them that she was dead and took them to the AIIMS hospital. After Viswanathan identified her daughter's body in the hospital, the police registered a case of accidental death and started further investigation. Meanwhile, the doctor who conducted the post-mortem examination of the dead body said that she died due to a gunshot wound to the head, the single bullet that caused the death was fired from a distance of 10 meters. He said that the bullet was recovered from the dead body and showed it to the police. It was a 9 mm diameter bullet used in pistols. Based on this information, it was revealed that Soumya was murdered. Since Soumya was a journalist, she was hiding something influential. The police thought that it might have been a case of red-eye. The place where the accident took place, a 9 mm bullet was also found in Soumya's car on thorough inspection, a purse of money was missing. Then the police said that it was a murder for robbery. Police undertook further investigation. CCTV footage from Nelson Mandela Road was checked. Ten minutes before the murder, a Santro car was following  Soumya's car. But the number plate details of that car were not found. After four months of  investigation, Soumya's murder case remained in the files as a cold case.

    After few months another case was registered, 25-year-old Jigisha lived with her parents in Vasant Vihar, which is close to Soumya's area. She was working in an IT office in Noida. On March 17, 2009, Jigisha, who worked in the night shift, boarded the office cab to go home after finishing office work at 3 o'clock in the morning of the 18th. She phoned her mother Sabita saying, I have left for home, but she did not come home for four and a half hours. Assuming that her daughter must have been in the office that night, Sabita became quiet. Because three times before she said that she is coming home but she stayed in the office. But her father Jagdish was surprised when her office cab arrived home at five o'clock the same evening to take Jigisha to office. He addressed the cab driver and said, 'Jigisha did not return home this morning, she must have stayed at the office', Cab driver was surprised, 'What are you saying sir? Last night I took Jigisha from office and dropped her in front of your house at 4.15 am today. When she got down from the cab, she was talking to someone on the phone,' he said.

    Alarmed, Jagdish called Jigisha's office and informed that Jigisha had not come home. But the staff there gave a quick reply that they don't know where she went. Jagdish called both mobile phones used by Jigisha. They were both switched off. At 9 pm, officials from Jigisha's office came to Jagdish's house and instructed him to go to the police station and lodge a complaint. When Jagdish Ghosh went to the Vasant Vihar police station under his jurisdiction and complained that his daughter was missing since last night, police did not take the complaint and they said, 'Your daughter may have run away with her boyfriend'. “My daughter has no boyfriend. Please file a complaint of missing daughter,' Jagdish begged, but the police did not file a complaint.(1)

    The sudden disappearance of her daughter Jigisha, who had told her that she would return home in a few minutes, shocked her mother Sabita. Moreover, she became angry when the police did not register a missing case. So they went to the house of an MP they knew. He expressed outrage over the behavior of the police and sought the help of the MP. Jagdish Ghosh complained that his daughter was missing at the Vasant Vihar police station the very next day, under pressure from the MP police registered case of missing . Jagdish Gosh said in compliant that  Jigisha was wearing two gold rings and a pearl necklace. She kept a set of pictures, cash, debit card and pancard in it. She also had an iPod and two mobile phones Jagdish told the police. A case of kidnapping was registered in the station.

    Suspecting that the police may not be interested in the case further, Sabita herself approached the detective. Sabita reasoned that if she observed the bank transactions done in the last two days by her daughter Jigisha, Sabita would get some information. Sabita accessed the bank details using the password shared by her daughter. Rs 25,000/-  from the account at an ATM in Delhi cash was drawn. Also, on the same day in the afternoon in several shops in South Delhi, Rs. 70,000/- of  Various luxuries of value were purchased. Sabita immediately went to Jigisha's bank, informed them that her daughter had been kidnapped and demanded more information about her debit card transactions. The banker told her that the information would be given only if the police asked.

    Two days after Jigisha went missing, the young woman's body was found near Surajkund on the border of Delhi. When the Faridabad police reached the spot, it was found that she was about 25 years old. There were no marks on her body. Considering it to be an unknown body, the police registered a case and took photographs of the dead body. Police shared the photograph and other details of the deceased to the neighboring Delhi Police as usual. The Delhi Police Control Room shared this information with all the police stations in the city. The Vasant Vihar police received this and went to Faridabad with Jigisha's photo to verify the details as the details of the deceased matched that of the missing Jigita. Suspecting that the body might be Jigita's, Delhi Police contacted Jagdish and reported it to the mortuary. As soon as he saw the dead body, Jagadish recognized it as his daughter and started crying. Jigita's body was sent for post-mortem. The doctor who conducted the post-mortem reported that Jigisha was strangled and killed, she was not raped.

    The Delhi Police added robbery, murder and destruction of evidence charges to the kidnapping case. On the same day, Jigisha's mother went to the police station and reported that on the morning and afternoon of her disappearance, she had withdrawn money from the ATM using her debit card and gave the information that she had bought things from five shops, and took the police with her to the bank. Police got the details from the bank and went to the ATM where they withdrew Rs 25,000/- the ATM was in  Mahipalapur area of Delhi. When checking the recordings of the CCTV camera, it was recorded that a red colored Santro car went on that road around 5 am.

    Next, the police went to the shops where purchases were made on Jigisha's card. 2 of them were in South Delhi's Sarojini Nagar Market while 3 were in Saket area. A 22 inch TV was purchased from a television shop in Sarojini Nagar. When the shopkeeper was inquired about the purchase, three youths aged 25-30 years came to the shop, they bought a TV and gave a debit card. When asked whose the card belonged to, one of the young men said that it was his, and he signed the bank slip given as proof of the purchase. When shop keeper asked boys the address to install TV, one person gave an address in Saket area. When shopkeeper sent his workers to give service they found out that the address was fake, said shop owner Ziauddin. The said documents were handed over to the police.

    Expensive shoes were bought worth Rs 14,700/- from a footwear shop in the same Sarojini Nagar market with Jigisha’s card, the footwear shopkeeper also said the same words as Ziauddin TV shopkeeper said. The Police went to the near by watch company where they had brought a watch using same debit card. Police asked the shop owner to give the footage recorded in that shop. Later police reached Saket extension market. A cooling glass and a pair of shoes were purchased through Jigisha's debit card in two shops there. The debit card bank slips were sized by police and the signature in the slip were different. Shopkeeper said 3 young men came to him for shopping and one of them was wearing a white cap.  When Jigisha’s mother was showed all the signatures, she said that they were all fake signatures.

    Meanwhile, the police got information that one of the two mobile phones owned by Jigisha was activated, and when they traced the location of the phone, it was in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. The investigating officer went there. Kapil Sharma, a construction mason who had put a new SIM in Jigisha's handset mobile was using it. When he was questioned at the police station he said, “Two days ago I had brought a lorry load of sand while unloading it, I found this handset in it, there was no SIM in it, I inserted a new SIM', he said. When police realized that he was telling the truth, they released him. When the police went through the CCTV footage obtained from the watch shop, it was recorded that three youths came to the shop and bought things, but the police did not know who they were. Meanwhile, the footage recorded in the ATM was also available, it was recorded that Jigisha came there with two young men. The young men covered their faces with kerchiefs.(2)

    The police showed Jigisha's mother the CCTV footage and asked, 'Do you recognize any of those youths?' She said, 'I don't know who these youths are. But look here, there is a tattoo on the elbow of the person who is signing the debit card slip, She said. When the identification was enlarged on the computer, the name Malik appeared.  'Sir, a man named Malik has committed several thefts within the jurisdiction, shall we bring him and interrogate him? one officer asked. With the permission of investigating officer, the Constable immediately went to Malik's house. He was at home. Constable brought Malik  to the police station and showed him the CCTV footage of the watch shop. He accepted that he, his friends Ravi Kapoor and Ajay Shukla were there. 'Jigisha's abduction and murder were committed by them. Ravi Kapoor is the mastermind said Malik in front of Police..

    Ravi Kapoor had committed theft and robberies in many parts of Delhi and went to jail and he’s out now. For the past two years, he was receiving money from the police by giving information about the activities of criminals in Vasant Vihar and Vasantkunj police stations. The police thought he had given up crime. Without delay the investigator went to Ravi’s house. There was a country pistol in the left pocket of Ravi's pant which had one bullet in it. There were three service bullets in the right pocket. A Santro car was parked outside the house. A sticker saying Punjab - Haryana High Court Judge was pasted on it. A box under the steering wheel contained a Chinese-made revolver with four bullets in it. There were two bag packs in the car. One had the uniform worn by a Delhi Police Assistant Sub-Inspector and the black gown worn by a lawyer. In another, there was a red beacon like the one used to put on the roofs of police vehicles, a talwar, a knife, a large bunch of fake car keys, a fake identity card of a Star News reporter in the name of Ravi Kapoor, etc. After seizing all these things, Police brought Ravi to the station and interrogated him and  he said:

     'On March 18, at 4 am, my friends and I were returning home  in a stolen Santro car from Ghaziabad. A young woman was talking on the phone in front of a house compound. They got desire to rob her. They stopped the car in front of her house, asked for the address, when she came near to our car to give the address, my companions covered her mouth and dragged her into the car. I showed her the pistol and told her that if she gives all the things , we will leave and drove the car. She gave purse, mobile phones and jewelry. After seeing the debit card in that purse, he asked how much money is in her bank, she said maybe RS 75,000/-. They got  the ATM PIN from her and withdraw Rs 25,000/-  and they  decided to kill her as if she was left alone she would identify them and lead to arrest. Malik and Ajay, who were in the back seat, strangled her to death. They then went to Suraj Kund and threw her body in a bush on the roadside. They took the money and debit card from the purse, switched off the mobile phones and threw them into the lorries on the road. That afternoon they bought several things from the market using her debit card.'

    On Ravi's statement, his second accomplice Ajay Shukla was brought down. When the three accused were taken to shops where they had bought items using Jigisha's card, they were spotted by all the shopkeepers. The handwriting of two of them was similar to the writing on the debit card slips. The police produced all the three accused before the magistrate and took them into custody for further investigation. One night suddenly Ravi Kapoor revealed that he had murdered a young woman six months ago and the investigator was shocked. 

    He said: One night in the month of September 2008, all three of them were returning home after a party. As they were walking down Nelson Mandela Road, zen car was coming  behind us. Seeing a young lady diving, he drove his vehicle slowly to chase her and did not let her overtake her. She honked repeatedly and she over took their vehicle. Then Ajay got angry and drove his car right next to her car and fired two shots from his pistol at her. It hit her head. Her car hit the road divider. Then all three of them went to her car. She collapsed. When they went to grab her belongings, they saw another vehicle coming from the opposite direction. So they stole only her purse and left from there. Later they came to know that she is a TV journalist.

    The bullet taken out of Soumya's head was struck by the Revolver confiscated from Ravi Kapoor, and the three accused were made accused in that case as well. Another accused, Ajay Kumar, was arrested on the charge of selling the pistol used in Soumya's murder, and Ajay , on the charge of conspiracy to murder, was arrested and charged in both the cases. After hearing the Jigita case, the court sentenced Ravi Kapoor and Ajay Shukla to death and Malik to life imprisonment. Later, the Delhi High Court upheld the life sentence for all. In Soumya's case, all the five accused have been convicted. Finally, two cases of murder were discovered by a mother.

 

 

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Reference

1) Dr.D.V Guruprasad, 2023 October 29, “ರಾಷ್ಟ್ರ ರಾಜಧಾನಿಯನ್ನು ತಲ್ಲಣಗೊಳಿಸಿದ ಕೊಲೆ , part-1, A Kshana, Vijayavani, Bengaluru, Page No-06

2) Dr.D.V Guruprasad, 2023 November 05,“ಸುಖಾಸುಮ್ಮನೆ ಕೊಲೆಯಾದ ಯುವತಿ, part 3, A Kshana, Vijayavani, Bengaluru, Page No- 08

3) Dr.D.V Guruprasad, 2023 November 12, “ ತಾಯಿಯ ಛಲದಿಂದ ಪತ್ತೆಯಾದ ಕೊಲೆಗಳು , part 4, A Kshana, Vijayavani, Bengaluru, Page No- 7A