Moon Gazer continues……

On 12 May 1990, Mrs Veerawali, an eighty-five-year-old widow living alone, was found clubbed to death in her South Extension Part 1 residence, her valuables looted. This was in the jurisdiction of the district under my charge. I visited the crime scene and was appalled to see a poor old helpless lady bludgeoned brutally, her skull cracked open, blood and pieces of flesh splattered all over the walls, and her meagre belongings ransacked mercilessly. Having visited several crime scenes in my fourteen years of police service until then, I had fancied myself to be a tough cop who would not flinch when confronted with any crime scene. But I was not prepared for what was before me. Short of turning my eyes away and retching in front of my subordinate officers, I experienced every other revolting sensation during those moments. I recall steadying myself deliberately, lest I make a fool of myself before my juniors and the lady’s relatives present at the spot.

During the preliminary investigation, what intrigued us was the probable motive to kill the old lady, who could easily have been overpowered and robbed. The main line of investigation, therefore, was based on the presumption that perhaps she recognized the intruders. This led to the theory that the motive to kill was possibly to grab her property, and the ransacking was done only to give the impression that this was a robbery. This line of investigation soon went cold when her immediate relatives, who could have staked their respective claims to her property, were found to be beyond reproach.

We had lifted fingerprints from the spot, but they did not give us any breakthrough either. They matched none in the Delhi Police database and we struggled with the investigation, probing misleading lines of inquiry. We were still in the thick of investigating Mrs Veerawali’s murder when a similar incident occurred, not very far from her house, but in the jurisdiction of another police station of my district.

To be continued……