|
|
DOWRY
The heat was shimmering across the city, baking objects and inhabitants alike into a lifeless stupor. Everything was in slow motion as if pinned down by the brilliant rays of the sun. Sounds were harsh and unpleasant, with the incessant noise of the traffic sounding strange and artificial, another of the numerous discomforts that torments one in the Delhi summer. The only real activity was the buzzing of flies at the window. I watched the energy of the insects with wonder, my own limbs felt like lead, my head full of wool. But the man across the table from me was working, not for him a leisurely summer vacation. The subinspector had just put a folder in front of him, breaking the thread of the conversation we had just been having.
Kanta Prasad looked up after a quick perusal and gave me a grim look. “This is a typical example to illustrate what I was saying. The question of murder, suicide or accident has been done to death in western crime fiction and yet in front of me is the same connundrum in it’s most insoluble form. It is for me to decide which of the three it was and I would have no facts to go by except my own judgement of the people involved. The report in front of me is simple. A twenty year old woman, married for just six months, has died of burns. The husband says he came into the room to find her clothes burning. He says he tried to save her and has burn marks on his arms and hands. But the girls parents are alleging dowry death, and as you know, all unexplained deaths within 7 years of marriage have to be fully investigated. This is one type of case I hate.”
I could understand the Inspector’s point of view. It was the most abominable of crimes that plagued the Delhi Police but ardent fan of detective fiction though I was, I found myself reluctant to peek into the sordid mess this case was likely to be. I had read of innumerable such stories in the newspaper, and hardly felt like going into the ugly details of this case. But I soon cheered up at the thought of getting a first hand experience of a murder investigation. It was not often that outsiders would be permitted to accompany a police officer, but Kanta Prasad had become a close personal friend the previous year.
In a short while we were piling into a rickety police jeep, it’s leaky diesel engine belching out copious amounts of jet black smoke. For a while we waited in the scorching heat for one more member of the investigating team to join us. To my surprise it was Dr. Thomas Chacko who lectured us in forensic medicine at the medical school.With a sound like a bilious vomit the Jeep set off, dust and smoke billowing behind.
The squat and sprawling hospital was the first destination. I knew it well since I lived on campus and followed Dr.Chacko to the burns ward. I was used to the strange antiseptic small that assailed the nostrils. Police constable Bhoop Singh led the way to one of the many cubicles which housed the misery of a burns victim. Abandon hopes all ye who enter here should have been the motto of that grim ward, where the grim reaper stalked in the form of infection..
The body was covered with a white shroud and a policeman stood nearby. Dr. Chacko strode ahead and peeled back the covers with scant respect. The gruesome sight of a shrivelled lifeless corpse was one I had seen many times before, yet each time was as bad as the first. Dr. Chacho made a quick examination of the body and turned to me.
“I have seen you before, aren’t you a medical student here?’ I nodded and he continued. “In a case like this there is very little to be gained from a post mortem. As you can see, the body shows nearly 100% burns. No question of splash marks being discernible as you might see in suicidal or homicidal burns cases. Of course we will be looking for other injuries later, but on a preliminary examination I would have very little to help Inspector Prasad here.”
The Inspector had to bend over to whisper to the little, almost tiny pathologist, who strode out of the cabin to the nurses station with his usual busling energy. A nurse in a white sari was tending to a man with bandages on both hands. I looked at the short, powerfully built man with interest. This must be the husband. He looked haggard with part of his full beard singe off and looking peculiar. He glanced at us in silence and did not protest as Dr. Chacko in his white coat went up to him and started peeling back the bandage. I could sense the resentment in the nurses eyes as her labours were laid to waste, yet there was not a word out of the stolid silence of the man. Soon we were gazing at the red and oozing flesh on his hands. The palms and backs of both the hands were burnt upto the wrist. Two rounded areas on the right forearm were burnt too. I stared at them wondering if they were because of splashing kerosene. Dr. Chacko took out a form and started recording the injuries. There was only one further area of burn injury, on the left calf. The little man ordered all his clothes to be collected too, and the nurse bussled forward with a gown and fresh bandages.
As we went out, I heard the words liquid kerosene burn and felt sorry for the man over who’s head a noose seemed to have materialised. There had been something pathetic in his mute acquiscence of the rough examination, and for all his burly appearence, I felt sorry for him. What if he had really tried to save his wife and got hanged for it?
The house was a whitewashed concrete monstrosity in the midst of other similar monstrosities, stark, square and severe, the brilliant white newness slapping you in the face. Yet all the houses for miles around were similar, square rooms knocked together for sheer functionality with not a care for aesthetic sense or pleasaning appearence to the eye. Bare unpainted bricks with smudges of plaster visible in the cracks in between were everywhere. The house was large with 4 rooms below and three upstairs. But 10 members of the large family lived in it, so it was just adequate, though luxurious by Indian standards.
I looked at the victim in shocked surprise as I entered the drawing room. She was beautiful! A far cry from the obscene mass which was her face now. Even the apish bearded man beside her looked very different from the sullen and mulish person I had just met. The bridal finery and the happiness in their faces was palpable. I looked away from the marriage photograph in sudden revulsion
It was the kitchen where it had happened. The place was a mess with bits of burnt clothing and charred bits everywhere. In the center of the floor was an upturned kerosene stove. The wall showed a large black area from a burnt curtain. Spilt milk had congealed into a sticky mess. My eyes immediately noted the kerosene jerrycan which stood in one corner. A policeman stood next to it. The entire place reeked of a horrible burnt smell. Burnt flesh? I shuddered.
Kanta Prasad took out a notebook and started writing in it. He ordered fingerprints on the jerrycan to be taken and particular note of where all the burn marks were present. “ This is definitely not an accident” he said in a short while, “You can see multiple burn marks on this table in the shape of drops and the whole irregular areas of burning suggest splashing kerosene as you would get if there was a struggle between Anita and whoever burnt her. It doesnt look like suicide either. No, there is no doubt in my mind now, this is a case of bride burning and nothing else. See, why should this part of the lino burn in this peculiar shape, if it was not due to spilt kerosene? It could not have come from the stove because the tank is full. This jerry can however is three fourths empty”.
I was quite surprised at just how much information Kanta was drawing from the scene of the crime. It was a blessing nothing had been cleaned up since 10 AM when the crime had occurred. We all went into the adjacent room and stared at a sullen crowd of people.
They looked a sorry bunch allright. There were eight of them, the father and mother in law, an older brother and his wife and two kids, a younger unmarried brother and a younger sister. All looked shocked. None appeared to be grieving except the little boy and girl, but all appeared apprehensive. I could sense the ranks closing against us as the family prepared to hide it’s secrets.
Kanta didn’t question them yet. Instead he walked up to them and eyed them keenly without saying a word. The younger sister came last, whom he asked to bring the ration card, He showed it to us, pointing to the ten litres of kerosene that had been purchased that Saturday. He turned to me and said, “This is a good example of collecting factual information. But remember, it is not usually so easy. You can now see how a police interrogation is carried out”
But first we went through the various rooms of the house. The room the family had gatherd in was the elder Goel’s room. Nearby was a large room where Amit Goel the elder son and his children slept. It was messy with an unpleasant smell and toys scattered all over. Upstairs was the newly furnished room of the bride and groom. Two small rooms housed the unmarried brother and sister and another room was locked where a cousin who was out of station stayed. I looked at Anita and Ajay’s room with interest. There was a new box bed, a new dressing table, and a new Godrej steel wardrobe full of gaudy clothes. I could see the suit that Ajay Goel had been wearing downstairs in the photo. Would he ever be able to wear it again?
Kanta turned to me with a smile.
“This is an open and shut case. Not only was it a case of murder, but I also
know who the murderer probably is”. I looked at him in surprise. Did he know
something I didn’t? Kanta was still smiling.”This is a very Sherlock Holmes
kind of case rather than the sort of usual case we get in which one does not
have factual evidence to go upon. In fact even without speaking to anybody at
all I have formed an impresion of how the crime was committed and who might have
done it. Further questioning would mainly be for the purpose of verifying my
hypothesis”
I could sense Dr. Chacko’s resentment
as keenly as my own. Obviously Kanta had seen something we both had missed. “Did
one of those people have burn or kerosene marks on them?” I asked, sure that
must have been the clue. But Kanta just went downstairs smiling.
I lingered on in the new bedroom,
looking at the garishness of the furniture. The shirts in the closet gleamed
with synthetic sheen, as did the trousers and the marriage suit. The squareness
of the box bed, the stool that stood in front of the dressing table which also
had a box compartment under it, both varnished a dark purplish brown were
startling in the uncarpeted severeness of the room. My eyes and head ached with
the heat as I turned and followed downstairs. We piled into the Jeep and set off
back to the station leaving Bhoop Singh behind to bring everyone to the station
house. To the right and left of me the houses lay bare and ugly, sitting like
boxes strewn on the land, even unpainted brick surfaces reflecting the
unbearable sun back into the eyes.
Kanta and I were back where we started,
Dr.Chacko having left. I looked at his smiling face and for the first time felt
awe. This was an unusually professional man, the like of which I was meeting for
the first time outside of a hospital. He
had the same ability to radiate confidence that most of the senior doctors
possessed, coming to lightning decisions incomprehensible to the uninitiated.
What had he seen in that quick largely silent examination of his that made him
announce that he saw light in the case? I looked at his homely face and
wondered.
The questioning began that evening and
continued all of the next day. I was present during most of it, having a lot of
free time on my hands in my summer vacation. The brides father was first, a
paint dealer from Chandni Chowk, also called Goel. His face looked haggard and
hard at the same time, rather like a tired but undefeated warrior. He was angry
and shoouted a lot. Kanta didnt seem to mind, though.
He had paid dowry, cash, jewelry, a
scooter, most of the new furniture that we saw in that room. But now Amit Goel
and his father, who owned a car servicing outlet were in financial trouble and
had asked him for money. He had said no and alleged harrassment of his daughter
subsequently.
Kanta got rid of the swearing and
profusely angry man after the main facts had been elicited. Amit came next,
hands all bandaged up, still sullen and answering in monosyllables. His thick
beard was collected up into knots and bundles. I felt myself believing his
simple and bland statement - “I loved my wife a lot”, his use of the word
bahut carrying a unique emphasis. His story didnt change and he denied that his
wife had been troubled at all for any reason, definitely not for dowry. His
father, a thin and cachectic individual denied everything in the same vein, as
did all the others.
I had been looking carefully at all the
people who came in one by one, trying to spot something in their appearence or
their story which might give me a clue to what
Kanta thought. But as one person after the other followed in the chair, I
grew discouraged. There didnt seem anything at all that would point to the right
person. We adjourned for the night and resumed questioning the next morning. The
first person in was Amit’s younger and unmarried brother, Ajay.
Suddenly Kanta’s manner which had been
bored and polite the previous day changed dramatically. He was now loud and
intimidating, sitting in front of the man on the desk, Bhoop Singh standing next
to him with a hand on his shoulder.
“We know all about everything, Ajay.
We know you made advances towards your sister in law. We know you went too far
yesterday morning and killed her to prevent the facts coming out! We know all of
this happenned, we have the evidence, so admit it. You did it didnt you?”
It was the first I had heard any of this
and was surprised out of my wits. I watched the man got to peaces in the face of
repeated questioning on the same lines, and admitted everything. I was
stunned.
After the man had signed the statements,
I sat down with Kanta and something of my wonder must have showed in my face,
because he laughed until he got tears in his eyes.
“So, Shankar, you think I am Sherlock
Holmes, do you? I went to the scene of the crime and saw things and laid my
hands on the criminal unerringly. Is that what you think? Now I will tell you
what actually happenned and who actually solved the problem.”
“Yesterday, I was rather favourably
impressed by the husband Amit, and regardless of what books tell you, it is the
policeman’s impression of the character of the people involved that decide
which way an investigation goes. In another case, it might have been the only
thing, though not in this one. What I thought after inspecting the scene of the
crime, you lready know. But you failed to observe something, although you
guessed correctly that I must have seen signs of splashed kerosene. That is
exactly what I did see. This chap Ajay works in the family shop and his pants
that he was wearing was dirty black with all the grime on it, except for his
knees which showed a clean area without any dirt. As you know, kerosene is a
solvent and would effectively dry clean any cloth coming in contact with it. So
when he gor kerosene on this clothes and then rubbed off the wetted parts with
some cloth, he rubbed off all the dirt on that area. Of course. that was just a
clue, he could have got petrol from the garage on his pants or any other reasen
for a clean patch, but it gave me an idea that it would be worth investigating
this chap.
You saw me question most of the people,
but there was one person that I did not question, a person you do not know
anything about at all. This family has a servant called Nathu, and he was kept
in all night, questioned last night and this morning by Bhoop Singh.”
I looked at the large bulgingly muscular frame of Bhoop Singh and shudderred. Kanta smiled at me. “When Bhoop Singh questions anybody, they talk, and spill everything. I can never be the questioner that Bhoop Singh is, his very body is intimidating. Anyway, this time he did not have to beat anything out of the chap as he has frequently done, the servant talked. This fellow Ajay seems to have fancied his sister in law, who’s photograph you admired in the
RETURN TO