Insensible Act

    It is a highway. The time is 2 o'clock in the night. One or two cars were seen on the road. A family was going to their native place in a car. As the car entered a town by itself, the driver of the car saw an oncoming scooter. There were three people in it. In the middle of the night, when the driver of the car was wondering where they were going, the speeding scooter was crossing a high-speed breaker on the road when the vehicle lost control and the three people fell down. The driver of the car saw this and rushed to help the injured. Among those who fell were two young men and a young woman. When the driver of the car went to help them, a young man who looked panicked told him that nothing had happened to him and told him to move on. When the driver glanced at them, both youths were seen with minor injuries. But the young lady was bleeding from her head. The injured did not seek help. 

    The driver of the car left half a km. Later, he informed a beat police officer who he saw on the road that there was a scooter accident on the road and told him that three people were injured, and one of them was a woman who appeared to be seriously injured. Beat PC was informed about this in the police control room. A wireless message was sent. A police patrol vehicle reached the spot where the scooter was lying. The front wheel of the scooter was damaged, and it could not move forward. A woman was lying on the road, bleeding from her head. The two young men suffered severe injuries.

    The police immediately called an ambulance to the spot and took everyone to the district hospital. Doctors at the hospital declared the woman dead and administered first aid to the injured youth. The injured two youths said that the deceased's name was Soumya; she was 22 years old, and their names were Krishna and Perumal. He said that all three of them belonged to the same family and that they were urgently going to the next town due to a death in the family. A complaint was registered against the scooter driver, Krishna, for causing death by excessive speed and negligence, and it was directed that both youths remain at the police station that night. After dawn, doctors conducted a post-mortem examination on Soumya's body. When the investigator went to the hospital, he said, 'This woman did not die in an accident. She was strangled and murdered. The incised wounds on her body were after her death. It seems that she has been dead for more than 40 hours,' said the doctor. The investigating officer returned to the police station and interrogated the two youths there, first separately and then together. Then Perumal said:

    My family and I migrated from Tamil Nadu to Karnataka 10 years ago and now live in the state capital. Krishna is my maternal uncle's son, and we both work as plasterers. My sister Durga and her husband are engaged in prostitution in a house in our area. Soumya had come there a year ago to work as a prostitute. She used to live at my elder sister's house. A few weeks ago, when both my sister and her husband went to town, Soumya stole some of my sister's gold ornaments and ran away. The theft came to light after the older sister returned home. My sister and her husband went to Soumya's town and forcefully took Soumya to their house yesterday evening. And they warned Soumya  to return the stolen items. During interrogation, Soumya asserted that she had not committed the theft. My brother-in-law got angry and started beating Soumya. However, when she didn't admit her fault, my brother-in-law got angry and snapped her neck. She suffocated and fell down.  

    My sister and brother in law didn't know what to do next. He called me to his house and told me what had happened. Then I told Krishna to come there. After he came, the four of us started discussing how to hide Soumya's death from others and how to dispose of her body without anyone knowing. Sister, you don't think. 50–60 km from here, there is a forest. In a wild forest, we throw this dead body, pour petrol on it, and burn it. No one knows about Soumya's death. If anyone comes to inquire about her, tell them that she has run away from your house, said Krishna. How can you carry the body so far? When his sister asked, Krishna replied that he would carry it on a scooter. When Krishna asked me to come for his help, I agreed.

    Later, we both drank and had dinner at my sister's house. After midnight, Krishna sat on the driver's seat of the scooter. We placed Soumya's body behind him. Then I sat behind the dead body and held it tightly so that it did not fall down. We left on the highway. The road was deserted. Either because of that or under the influence of alcohol, Krishna was speeding the scooter. After we entered this town, Krishna did not slow down the speed of the scooter, as he could not see the bump in the road ahead. Then the scooter fell down. We both fell down with the corpse. The driver of the car coming behind us saw this and came to help. We are fine; go ahead', we told the car driver. But the car driver informed you, neither of us committed this murder. We have done the work of transporting dead bodies'. Later, when the police went to Perumal's elder sister Durga's house and questioned her, she confirmed what her brother had told her. She and her husband arrested and registered a case of murder and destruction of evidence against the four accused. Since no one witnessed Soumya's murder, the case has to be proved in court through circumstantial evidence.(1)

    The case is under trail, don’t know how will the court decide how Soumya's death happened? It is not known what could have happened if the scooter had not fallen down on the bumpy road. There are plenty of cases in which crime cant be proved because of lack of evidence. It will be interesting to see what twists and turns the case will take next.

 

 

 

 

Reference

1] Dr.D.V Guruprasad, 2023 December 24, “ರಸ್ತೆ ಉಬ್ಬಿನಿಂದ ಪತ್ತೆಯಾದ ಕೊಲೆ”, A Kshana, Vijayavani, Bengaluru, Page No-8

 2] Image from pinterest