THE BUTCHER OF BENARES

by MAHENDRA JAKHAR

  ‘No, the pattern never broke. We failed to see it. In all the murders, he left the Cross behind. In the case of Tailanga Swami, he left the axe. The Cross and the axe had one thing in common. The wood,’ said Hawa Singh.

  ‘Is it possible that the axe’s handle and the Cross were made of the same wood?’ asked Ruby with renewed excitement.

  ‘Yes, it’s possible. We need to check on that.’

  CHAPTER 27

  Hawa Singh and Ruby sat inside the Sparrow building in Sudha Krishnamurthy’s office. Sudha was drinking tea and coughing badly. She wore three sweaters, one over the other, the inner one a full neck. Over them all she wore another elegant silk saree. There were, in addition, a shawl over her shoulders and a woollen muffler covering her ears and most of her head. She looked like a rabbit, with her nose sticking out and her lips twitching.

  ‘I can’t stand this cold,’ she complained. ‘I am more used to Chennai weather—this winter is too harsh for me.’

  Hawa Singh nodded with a smile. He was back in his wet jacket and a fresh pair of jeans and t-shirt bought for him by Ruby. Ruby was dressed in her best dark-grey suit with knee-length boots. Her Beretta M-1923 snuggled in her shoulder holster.

  Hawa Singh glanced at the family photograph on the desk, and Sudha noticed the look. ‘That’s my family,’ she smiled. ‘My husband passed away before I came here to Sparrow. My son is a software engineer in the US. I decided to devote my own life to the care of the mentally ill.’

  ‘There are very few people like you,’ said Ruby.

  ‘We all need to find a reason to live,’ said Sudha.

  Hawa Singh cleared his throat. ‘There are certain things that I wanted to understand from the psychological point of view. I’m just a policeman and I have my limitations. I wanted to know about serial-killers. I mean the way they think and act.’

  Sudha sat back in her chair comfortably. Ruby could see that Sudha was a confident and competent woman who prided herself on the knowledge of her subject. The glittering eyes were enough to tell that Sudha now held the commanding position in the room. The brows arching upward, and the thin smile on her lips amounted almost to condescension.

  There were hundreds of such men and women who toil away in such dark and damp rooms, unheard, unseen, almost invisible to society. It was only natural to feel important when someone actually knocked at their doors to seek advice.

  Sudha began in her soft, husky voice. ‘There are still conflicting views on the reasons that make one a serial-killer. It could be a traumatic childhood or the effect of violence around an individual. They are generally described as possessing IQs in the normal-to-bright range, but often have trouble keeping their jobs and tend to work in menial ones.’

  Ruby looked at Hawa Singh meaningfully. The FBI had already taught her all this.

  Sudha took another sip of her ginger tea. ‘There are some who are termed psychopaths. They lack empathy and guilt, are egocentric and impulsive, and theoretically do not conform to social, moral and legal norms. Instead, psychopaths often follow a distinct set of rules which they have created for themselves. They may appear to be normal and are often quite charming, a state of adaptation that psychiatrists call the “mask of sanity”.’

  ‘The Butcher seems to have all the characteristics of a psychopath,’ said Hawa Singh.

  ‘Don’t tell me he has killed again!’ said a shocked Sudha.

  Hawa Singh looked at Ruby, and with a sigh, said, ‘No, but we want to be prepared.’

  Sudha nodded to indicate she understood the situation. ‘Most serial-killers exhibit degrees of ASPD, Anti-Social Personality Disorder,’ she continued. ‘However, they often know how to hide many of these characteristics in order to blend with the rest of society. Serial-killer Ed Kemper in the US became particularly notorious for doing this, when he tricked psychiatrists into believing he was cured, seven years after being admitted to the Atascadero State Hospital for the murders of his two grandparents. Three years after his release, Kemper went on to murder at least eight additional victims.’

  Ruby gave a whistle although she had heard the story umpteen times.

  ‘The serial-killer begins as no different to any other individual who seeks approval from parents, sexual partners, or others. This need for approval is what influences children to attempt to develop social relationships with their family and peers. But if they are rejected or neglected, they cease to do so. This is because of the drastic lowering of their self-esteem, and their search for an alternate fantasy world in which they are the ones in control.’

  ‘So, control over others is what motivates a serial-killer?’ asked Hawa Singh.

  Sudha coughed loudly, then sipped again at her tea. ‘In psychology, the motives of serial-killers are generally placed in four categories: visionary, mission-oriented, hedonistic, and power or control. However, the motives of any given killer may display a considerable overlap among these categories. The visionary serial-killers suffer from psychotic breaks with reality, sometimes believing they are another person, or are compelled to murder by entities such as the Devil or God.’

  ‘The Butcher seems to think of himself as God,’remarked Ruby.

  ‘The mission-oriented killers typically justify their acts as ridding the world of a certain type of person perceived as undesirable—such as homosexuals, prostitutes, or people of different ethnicity or religion. However, they are generally not psychotic. Some see themselves as attempting to change society, often to cure a societal ill.’

  ‘I could see the Butcher as being one of those, too,’ said Hawa Singh.

  Sudha seemed to ignore the interruption. ‘The hedonistic serial-killer seeks thrills, and derives pleasure from killing, seeing people as expendable means to his goal. They could be driven by lust, a desire for excitement, or comfort.’

  ‘The killer in this case seems to have a mission, and considers himself to be the hand of God,’ Hawa Singh reasoned. ‘That proves, even further, that he is deeply religious. Maybe he also leads a solitary life and doesn’t have a stable job.’

  ‘I think that sums it up,’ said Sudha, rubbing her cold hands.

  ‘I haven’t personally dealt with serial-killers in Delhi,’ Hawa Singh told Sudha hesitantly. ‘This is my first such case.’

  ‘History is full of serial-killers,’ Sudha informed him. ‘Liu Pengli of China, cousin of the Han Emperor Jing, would go out on marauding expeditions with twenty or thirty slaves or criminals. They would murder people, seizing their belongings, for sheer sport. Eventually, it was discovered that he had murdered at least 100 people. The officials of the court requested that Liu Pengli be executed. However, the emperor could not bear to have his own cousin killed, so Liu Pengli was demoted to the status of commoner and banished.’

  ‘That’s some relief,’ said Hawa Singh, half-jokingly.

  ‘There’s more,’ said Sudha. ‘In the fifteenth century, one of the wealthiest men in Europe and a former companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc, Gilles de Rais, sexually assaulted and killed peasant children, mainly boys, whom he had abducted from the surrounding villages and taken to his castle. It is estimated that his victims numbered over 800. The Hungarian aristocrat Elizabeth Báthory allegedly tortured and killed as many as 650 girls and young women before her arrest in 1610.’

  ‘I have read,’ Ruby chipped in, ‘that Thug Behram, a gang leader of the Indian Thuggee cult of assassins, has been tagged to be the world’s most prolific serial-killer. He was believed to have murdered 931 victims by strangling them with a ceremonial cloth between 1790 and 1830. According to some estimates, the Thuggees murdered 1 million people between 1740 and 1840.’

  ‘You must be aware of,’ added Sudha in her turn, ‘the famous and yet unidentified killer known as Jack the Ripper. He killed at least five prostitutes, and possibly more, in London in 1888. Those crimes gained enormous press attention because London was the world’s greatest centre of power at the time, so having such dramatic murders of financially destitute wo
men in the midst of such wealth focused the news media’s attention on the plight of the urban poor, and gained coverage worldwide. He has also been called the most famous serial-killer of all time.’

  ‘They all seem to have had really sick minds,’ said Hawa Singh with undisguised disgust.

  ‘Most of them were caught only after they had already done the damage,’ went on Sudha, undeterred. ‘While many great investigators and detectives like you toiled in the dark searching for them.’

  ‘And all the time, those serial-killers were there right under their noses!’ marvelled Hawa Singh. ‘Like you said, these serial-killers were masked men. Normal people wearing masks.’

  ‘You could say that,’ said Sudha dryly.

  Ruby looked thoughtful and asked, ‘What about ritual killings or human sacrifices?’

  Sudha rubbed her nose. ‘Many ritual murders involve the idea of human sacrifice, usually for religious reasons. Human sacrifice is a feature of some, but not all, occult belief systems. The word “occult” means hidden and because of its very nature, this kind of ritual killing can be hard to investigate.

  ‘Even more difficult for forensic psychiatrists are those cases where a murder has been committed by a true believer who considers murder to be a sacred act of sacrifice. Such deaths tend to occur outdoors in a designated sacred area on a significant date. Generally, such acts are blood rituals involving a knife. Depending on the belief system involved, the killing may involve a rapid slitting of the throat, or be slower and more torturous.’

  ‘In the case of the Butcher,’ supplied Hawa Singh, ‘his first victim was killed on Makar Sakranti, 14 January—but then, the other dates don’t seem to have any significance.’

  ‘Well, Makar Sakranti is an auspicious day and maybe the killer believed it to be the start of a long pending work that he intends to finish.’

  ‘You mean he kicked off the series on that “auspicious” day?’ asked Ruby in disbelief.

  ‘It seems so.’

  They sat for a while in silence, Sudha still smiling gently. Ruby pitied her helplessness. There was only so much a psychologist could do.

  Hawa Singh finally straightened up in his chair and asked, ‘How is Manvendra keeping?’

  The skin below an eye of Sudha twitched slightly. It was a sign of nervousness, thought Ruby, as she observed it keenly. Is she hiding something?

  ‘It’s difficult to tell,’ Sudha said. ‘There are days when it seems that he has improved a lot, and then there are times when it seems all our hard work has gone down the drain. It’s like trying to reform a man-eater,’ said Sudha.

  ‘Man-eaters are finally shot dead,’ said Hawa Singh nonchalantly.

  ‘That doesn’t cure anything. We at Sparrow’s believe in providing holistic mental health and care. I can only hope for the best.’

  Ruby could see that Sudha had relaxed again. The brief tic under her eye had stopped. Perfectly understandable. Not many people questioned her about the cannibal.

  ‘Can we see him?’ asked Hawa Singh.

  Suddenly, Sudha was on guard. ‘You want to see him again?’

  ‘Yes, if you don’t have a problem with that.’

  Sudha raised her hands, signifying no objection. She summoned Dr Binod Pradhan, who once more took Hawa Singh and Ruby to meet the king’s brother.

  As Dr Binod Pradhan opened the door to the cell, a heavy pungent draught came from the room. Manvendra was sitting in a corner sheathed by thick smoke. Hawa Singh saw that he was smoking a rolled-up joint. The smell was definitely of marijuana. He turned to look at Dr Pradhan questioningly.

  Dr Pradhan waved the smoke away from his own nostrils and said, ‘We use marijuana as a medicine to calm down such patients. And especially in his case, it has proved very effective.’

  ‘You are turning him into an addict,’ said Ruby.

  ‘No, we monitor the doses. Earlier, we used to give it to him in his food but he threw it around. It seems he enjoys smoking it.’

  ‘What if he burns himself?’

  Dr Pradhan chuckled, looking at the monstrous face of Manvendra Singh behind the cloud of smoke, ‘You think he can harm himself any more than he already has?’

  Hawa Singh’s own head was buzzing. Was it possible that this Manvendra got out and went on his spree of killings? he wondered. No, he discarded the thought, it would be impossible for him to move beyond those doors.

  The cannibal looked at him and smiled. ‘You need a big heart, sharp mind and clear eyes to look through the fog,’ he intoned.

  CHAPTER 28

  He sat alone, admiring the Colt in his hand. He had opened it up, piece-by-piece, greased, re-assembled and loaded it. It was the revolver Hawa Singh kept with him at all times—the one that the policeman shot his way out of the tunnel with. The one he’d lost in the river.

  Nothing is ever lost in the Ganges.

  He had paid five hundred rupees to one of the little boys who dived deep into the river to look for coins thrown by devotees. On his fifth dive down, a little boy had found the gun for him. The look of the Butcher—and the money, of course—was enough to keep his little mouth shut forever.

  It is said that children can recognize the face of danger.

  He rested the Colt on his lap and caressed it. Should he use it to blow the man’s brains out, or just his heart? He laughed at the thought that Hawa Singh already had a bullet waiting in his head.

  The room was quiet. A few birds chirped outside on the branches. The din of traffic was far, far away. He could hear his own heartbeat. A cold gust of the ever-present wind blasted in through the window. The paper on the table before him rustled with it.

  These were his most precious moments when he could be all alone with himself. He loved his solitude. In solitude he was with his God. The silence was God. It was not an absence of sound, but the presence of the Omnipresent, Par Brahma.

  Those policemen didn’t understand him. He was not the Butcher the media proclaimed him to be. He had a purpose. If only they recognized his purpose; they, too, might join him in savagery.

  ‘Yes, I did kill Tailanga Swami, the Aghori leader. It was all so simple. He knew about me, had seen me, and wanted to expose me. He had to be stopped,’ he almost whispered to himself.

  The purpose behind an act was bigger than the individual who carried it out. So many people led purposeless lives. He had seen them going about their daily business, leading a rats’ race, only to glean a few grains, to squander it all on their petty wants, their greedy desires, their needless gadgets and vulgar statements of style. And they called him mad!

  But he was no messiah, to gently convert society to its real purpose. He was not there to change the course of history, or re-write it. He was going to end the chapter.

  If that made him a Butcher, so be it.

  ‘Oh Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’

  CHAPTER 29

  It was late evening and the Ganges seemed to suck out all sunlight. The sun hung limply in the sky, ready for a dip in the holy river, which already glittered with it. There was hope against hope the next day would be brighter and sunnier. But the winter, despite the weatherman’s forecast, was getting more and more severe. The fog was thicker than ever before. The quickly ensuing darkness turned out to be blacker than black.

  Hawa Singh had left Ruby at her hotel room to co-ordinate with the local police, gather all the forensic reports and make a point-by-point report of the investigation. He was out in the cold, walking towards Manikarnika Ghat. He could see shops lined with items used during cremation rites—ghee, timber, offerings and white cloth. This was the bazaar of the dead.

  While funeral pyres are usually lit a little distance from the heart of towns, as they are considered inauspicious, this doesn’t hold true in Benares, where Manikarnika is situated quite in the middle of the town itself. This is precisely because the entire city of Benares is considered the ‘Maha-Shamashan’ or the ‘Great Cremation Ground’.

  Th
e ghat was crowded with mourners and Doms. There were a few foreign visitors, who found the spectacle of burning the dead fascinating, even amusing. They stood at a distance, watching the rituals and discreetly taking pictures on their digital cameras.

  Hawa Singh was looking for the Dom Raja, Sanjeet Choudhary. A little ahead he could see a group of Aghori sadhus absorbed in their rituals. They were sharing a longish chunk of flesh. It looked like a half-burnt human leg.

  There were over thirty pyres burning at the same time. The best place to be in this harsh winter. The flames leapt up in the sky and above them was smoke. Above them all was the circle of crows.

  Crows are excitable birds. They react to hunger and invasion by vigorously vocalizing their feelings. They display happiness, anger and sadness.

  They also share an excellent memory. They’re masters at stashing food in caches, moving it sometimes two or three times in a day, and remembering exactly where they last placed it. For their size, they have the largest brains of all birds—except some parrots. Their brain-to-body ratio is equivalent to that of a chimpanzee’s and amazingly, not far off that of a human’s.

  The air was filled with the smell of burning human flesh and bones, mixed with ghee and other herb potions poured on the dead. There were sounds of bones cracking and wood splintering. A few laments could be heard of grieving relatives, along with the chanting of mantras. Ash flew around, making the air thick.

  Hawa Singh moved between the pyres and finally spotted Dom Raja supervising a cremation. He was covered with ash. The combination of his naturally dark complexion and the ash covering him lent him an eerie appearance. All the Doms looked the same, while cremating the dead. Theirs was one of the oldest professions practised in Benares. They said it was even older than prostitution.

  The sun finally submerged itself in the Ganges. The river shone blackly and inked all of Benares with its now uniform hue. Night fell.

  Sanjeet, Dom Raja, called to his men, ‘I’m going to the dawakhaana. I’ll be back later.’