Trials of Truth

by Pinky Anand

The Delhi High Court did find any motive in the love affair and the disproportionate payments, observing:

  It cannot be gainsaid that there was a motive for both Dr Jain and Chandresh to get rid of Vidya Jain. The affair between Dr Jain and Chandresh was neither ephemeral nor shallow. It was quite abiding and deep. Vidya Jain complained to her next-door neighbour, Mrs. Sheela Khanna (Public Witness 4), that Chandresh ‘behaved on the dining table as if she was the mistress of the house’. Though Dr Jain terminated Chandresh’s services as his Secretary within a month, it was only to buy peace in the house. The affair continued and the infatuation prospered. He continued remitting moneys to Chandresh regularly and the amounts involved were always in multiples of hundred and much more than Rs 300 the salary of which she had been deprived by her dismissal. It may be repeated that the one cheque he gave her on November 25, 1968 was for no less than Rs 8,400 the sum which she would have earned through 28 months’ continuous labour.

  Conspiracy

  Conspiracy comes into being the moment the agreement to commit the crucial act is reached, and it does not cease to exist so long as the intention of acting upon the agreements exists.

  When Rakesh and Chandresh went to hire Karan Singh as an assassin, the criminal conspiracy had come into existence. This conspiracy cannot be said to have come to an end when Karan Singh refused to carry out the part assigned to him (a conspiracy can be said to have ceased to exist only when either the objective of the conspiracy has been carried out or it is frustrated or aborted). Neither was the result achieved when Karan Singh refused to assassinate Vidya Jain. When Rakesh approached another person, Ram Kishan, and tried to enlist his services for killing Vidya Jain, it did not count as a new conspiracy but the same one. The same principle applies when the new assassins, Ujagar and Kartar, were engaged and the assignment was carried out successfully. ‘[T]he established facts on the record are that all along there was one conspiracy in operation, to kill Vidya Jain, and it continued right till the tragic demise of that unfortunate woman . . .’ The charges framed against the appellants do not refer to three separate conspiracies, nor did the trial involve three conspiracies lumped together as suggested by the lawyers for the accused persons.

  Who Should Be Hanged

  There was a faint attempt to draw a distinction between Kartar and Ujagar since it was Ujagar who had settled the ‘fees’ for the crime and it was he who had inflicted the fatal blows, while Kartar had only held the victim down. The Delhi High Court called it ‘a distinction without a difference’. The high court observed:

  [T]he circumstances demonstrate that the murder could not be committed by one of them alone. In order to ensure that Vidya Jain should die positively without involving the slightest risk of apprehension for the assassins it was necessary to pin her down and render her incapable of shouting or shrieking for succour. This end could be achieved only if someone held her steady for well-aimed blows as well as sealed her mouth to stifle her cries. Kartar rendered that indispensable service and enacted a part no less potent than that of the man who wielded the knife. Kartar had equipped himself, moreover, with a .303 bore pistol and adequate ammunition had furnished a guarantee to Ujagar that nobody would impede his execution of the murderous design or endanger their easy access to the getaway car. He did not use his weapon since no necessity arose therefore In our opinion the extreme penalty of law is equally deserved by Ujagar and Kartar.

  Dubious Distinction

  Back when the crime was committed, it was more likely that the poor went to the gallows and the affluent survived, albeit in jails. On awarding the death penalty to the remaining co-accused, the bench ruled in the negative. Though Dr Jain, Chandresh and Rakesh were present at the time of the incident, and it is also true that they were active members of the conspiracy, the court chose to make a distinction and held that the crimes committed by the other co-accused would seem to stand at a lower plane as compared to the roles attributed to Ujagar and Kartar. ‘They wished Vidya Jain dead and plotted her murder but all what they did would have accomplished nothing if Ujagar and Kartar had not undertaken to fulfil their wish and kill her.’

  This decision seemed rather questionable since all had plotted and conspired to kill. It goes against the general law of the land that every conspirator who conspired to commit the act is equally guilty even if he or she did not commit the act. But Jain and Chandresh got off with life imprisonment. Ujagar and Kartar’s sentence was enhanced from life imprisonment to death.

  The Supreme Court expressed its anguish in these terms:

  It is time that it was realised that the jurisdiction of this Court to grant special leave to appeal can be invoked in very exceptional circumstances. A question of law of general public importance or a decision which shocks the conscience of the Court are some of the prime requisites for the grant of special leave. If there is anything at all in this case which shocks our conscience it is this: that, if the death sentence was at all to be awarded, it should have been awarded to the hirelings and that the husband and his mistress who promised to pay to the hirelings large sums of moneys in order to procure the murder of the wife should have been awarded the lesser sentence.

  Jain was sentenced to life imprisonment but let off after eleven years for good behaviour, while the hired assassins, Kartar Singh and Ujagar Singh, were hanged to death.

  2

  WOMEN WHO KILL

  Introduction

  The idea that women, who are usually only regarded as caregivers and nurturers, can kill in cold blood is difficult to accept in Indian society. Despite the belief that murders are mostly male-perpetrated, women are often also culprits, killing with the same heartlessness as a male killer. As is the case with other aspects of life, it is often seen that the motivations of women killers are different from their male peers. While a large number of male criminals are driven by sadism, sex, violence and lust, women’s motivations are found to be mostly economic in nature. Motives that are common to both genders are greed and mental imbalance.

  Time and again we come across crimes so heinous that it is difficult for the public to believe that women, who we often wrongly embody as only mothers, sisters or wives, i.e., mostly in compassionate, caregiving roles, can be a part of them. Of course, the truth is that gender has nothing to do with a person’s ability to commit crimes.

  According to the cases that have presented themselves, women usually target people whom they know or who are primary caregivers too. Statistics the world over show that women mostly kill people they are close to, or will first get close to people and then kill them. Their crimes are also more carefully thought out and planned meticulously, which is why it becomes possible to often escape with less punishment by the judiciary.

  Renuka Shinde and Seema Gavit: Child Killers

  Living in a civilized society, it is hard to digest the idea that a mother and the first teacher of her child would instruct her children in the horrific art of murder. In Maharashtra, a woman named Anjanabai, the matriarch of her family, taught and encouraged her family to murder and abuse young children for money. The entire episode came to light when her two daughters, twenty-nine-year-old Renuka Kiran Shinde, twenty-five-year-old Seema Mohan Gavit along with Renuka’s husband, Kiran Shinde, were arrested in 1996. The three, along with Anjanabai, were accused of abducting and killing children, particularly those less than five years of age. Although they were accused of abducting thirteen children between 1990–96, and killing nine of them, they were eventually charged with only five murders.

  The accused had been involved in petty theft for most of their lives. The idea to kidnap children came to them one day when Renuka was in a temple and trying to steal something. On being caught, she grabbed hold of her young son, who had accompanied her, and appealed to the crowd, asking them how a woman with a child could commit theft. The doubt she created was enough for the people to let her go. She realized that if she was accompanied by a child while committing her crimes, the likelihood of getting caught
reduced significantly. She passed on the knowledge to her family, setting in motion the horrific crimes.

  The matriarch of the family, Anjanabai, perfected the art of kidnapping for ransom, often instructing her daughters to grab a child from a crowded place, where it was not easy to look for a missing child. They would look for places where festivals were being celebrated or marketplaces where children tended to wander, and easily abduct their target. In this manner, they managed to kidnap children from many major cities in Maharashtra. They would keep these children in Pune at their residence.

  The modus operandi of the sisters was easy: they would keep the child with them, often preferring to physically carry them while they went about their business of snatching purses and petty thievery. The children were promptly murdered when they attracted any attention or cried, or became too old to be carried in their arms.

  The murders were committed in a manner that belies belief. Online news reports1 detail that the murders were often committed by the sisters hurling the children on the ground with force, severely injuring them; the mother, Anjanabai, would later finish the job introducing further trauma.

  The murder of one of the kidnapped children called Santosh was carried out when he started crying. The two sisters banged the child’s head on the floor and then their mother smashed the severely injured child against an iron pole till he died. His body was thrown under an autorickshaw. He was just eighteen months old.

  Another eighteen-month-old girl child was gagged and dumped in a ladies’ toilet in a handbag. Yet another was hung upside down from the ceiling and his head was repeatedly banged on the walls to punish him for talking to passers-by about his real parents. It’s hard to imagine the extent of cruelty and greed of these women who went to the lengths of killing a two-year-old child by starving and beating him because he used to cry for his mother. However, this is also what helped cement every court’s decision to award the perpetrators the most severe punishment.

  After analysing the evidence and the prosecution witnesses, the Supreme Court, while confirming the death penalty stated:

  The appellants have been awarded capital punishment for committing these murders and their sentence was confirmed by the High Court. Going by the details of the case, we find no mitigating circumstances in favour of the appellant[s], except for the fact that they are women. Further, the nature of the crime and the systematic way in which each child was kidnapped and killed amply demonstrates the depravity of the mind of the appellants. These appellants indulged in criminal activities for a very long period and continued it till they were caught by the police. They very cleverly executed their plans of kidnapping the children and the moment they were no longer useful, they killed them and threw the dead body at some deserted place. The appellants had been a menace to the society and the people in the locality were completely horrified and they could not send their children even to schools. The appellants had not been committing these crimes under any compulsion but they took it very casually and killed all these children, least bothering about their lives or agony of their parents.

  We have carefully considered all aspects of the case and are also alive to the new trends in the sentencing system in criminology. We do not think that these appellants are likely to be reformed. We confirm the conviction and also the death penalty imposed on them. The stay of execution of the capital punishment imposed on these appellants shall stand vacated and the authorities are directed to take such further steps as are necessary to carry out the execution of capital punishment imposed on these appellants.

  The case clearly revealed the extent of depravity of human beings and how both men and women are capable of committing horrific crimes when greed takes over. What hits us hardest is the realization that these chilling scenarios took place behind a mask of absolute ordinariness. Cruelty in its worst form was conspicuous in its banality, enhancing the fear it instils in our hearts. These women could be around us. Maybe we saw them and never noticed, but their crimes have shaken us to the core and have made them the first women to have received the death penalty since Independence.

  The two sisters are now set to be the first women to be executed by hanging. They are currently awaiting their execution at Yerwada Central Jail in Pune. Their mother and matriarch of the family passed away in custody while awaiting trial in 1997. Renuka Shinde’s husband, Kiran Shinde, received immunity for his testimony. The mercy petitions of the sisters were rejected by the President on 31 July 2014.

  The Neeraj Grover Murder: A Murder Most Gruesome

  The case of a media executive chopped into pieces and murdered became a matter of public obsession in 2008. A young couple was caught in flagrante delicto by the woman’s boyfriend, which became the motivation for the crime. The people of India were so seized by the entire incident that a feature film was also made. The whole incident begs an oft-asked question: What is it about the human psyche that promotes and condones the killing of another human being in such a gruesome, unrelenting and unrepentant manner? Have we as a society failed to instil compassion in our generations?

  Another question was also asked, albeit in smaller, closed circles: Did the media have the right to so conveniently demonize the accused without going through the process of law?

  We have often seen crime generate interest. Gruesome, unimaginable crime more so, but does the media have any right to declare an accused guilty for a case that is sub judice? Does it not affect the psyche of the judicial process or of the judge, who is eventually a part of the society?

  Neeraj Grover was a media executive. Maria Monica Susairaj was a Kannada actress who wanted to work in the TV industry. When she moved to Mumbai, Maria befriended Grover and they soon entered into an intimate relationship. However, Maria started having doubts about whether Grover was serious in aiding her career. The prosecution alleged that the plan to kill Grover was hatched on 6 May 2008, when Maria contacted Emile Jerome Joseph, her fiancé.

  On 7 May 2008, Joseph went to Maria’s apartment at around 7.30 a.m. Both the accused killed Grover. After the murder, Maria destroyed the evidence by chopping up the body and stuffing the parts into plastic bags along with other clothes and mattresses that had bloodstains on them. She took a car to the outskirts of Mumbai, to a place called Manor and purchased petrol to burn the bags and the evidence. She also got the walls of the apartment painted to hide the bloodstains.

  On not receiving calls from her son, the mother of the victim contacted Neeraj’s cousin, who approached Neeraj’s friends as well as Maria. They later went to the Malad police station to record a missing persons report. The father of the victim approached the joint commissioner to initiate parallel proceedings for kidnapping, which was recorded on 20 May 2008.

  The police interrogated Maria on 21 May, wherein she confessed to her and her fiancé’s involvement in the murder of the victim. However, the statement was later retracted. She also took the police to the site where she had burnt the evidence. The police recovered a burnt skeleton as well as some other items, such as a bead necklace, a partly burnt deodorant bottle and a tin can. Bloodstains were also discovered at Maria’s house. Joseph also agreed to show the police the location of the machine that was used to chop the body and the car used to transport it.

  The court delved into whether the retracted confessional statement of Maria could be considered and stated:

  Taking into consideration the ratio laid down by Privy Council, and which is being followed by Apex court, I think aid of confessional statement can be taken in this case for certification or for lending the assurance to the guilt of the accused. I have gone through confessional statement of accused No. 1 carefully. The confessional statement goes to corroborate the circumstances, which have been brought on record to connect the accused No. 1 with killing of Neeraj Grover.

  [S]o the proved incriminating fact and circumstances, taken cumulatively, should form a chain so complete that there is no escape from the conclusion that within all human probability the accused No. 2 ki
lled Neeraj Grover. The incriminating circumstances are incapable of explanation of any other hypothesis than that of guilt of accused No. 2. Further part of confessional statement is about causing disappearance of evidence of killing Neeraj Grover. The circumstances, which have been brought on record through Satish Singh (P.W. 10), Vinod Mishra (P.W. 13), Dhiraj Shukla (P.W. 15), Vivek Tiwari (P.W. 19), Vaishali More (P.W. 20), Amarbahadur Yadav (P.W. 22) also go to connect the accused Nos. 1 and 2 for causing disappearance of evidence of killing Neeraj by screening themselves from legal punishment, which is also certified by the confessional statement of the accused No. 1. Therefore, I have no hesitation to hold that accused Nos. 1 and 2 with the intention to causing disappearance of the evidence of killing Neeraj Grover, attempted to destroy the evidence of killing of Neeraj Grover.

  Therefore, according to the court’s analysis of Maria’s confession, it was concluded that only Joseph was responsible for the murder of the victim. In her statement she alleged that Joseph killed Grover, and raped and threatened to kill her too. When the court examined her statement and corroborated it with the injuries she had received on her hand, it was concluded that she had tried to stop a fight that had ensued between the two men. The court also went into whether the murder was pre-planned or not, and concluded that it was a spur-of-the-moment reaction of a young man finding his fiancé with another man at odd hours. If the murder had been pre-planned, then there would have been meticulous planning and the other accessories purchased after the murder would have been purchased before. Moreover, there seemed to be no prior motive for the murder of the deceased. The court believed Maria’s initial statement and decided that she had just been an accessory to the crime and had in fact tried to stop it from happening.