Vikram Rana Investigates: Tales of Murder and Deception in Hyderabad

by Sharmishtha Shenoy

  Kannan nodded his agreement, ‘I have a cousin of a similar age. Just seeing this girl like this makes me feel sick. Murdered in her own home. Is anybody safe nowadays?’

  ‘Hmm...’ ACP Reddy responded, still looking down at the body, ‘Anything missing in the house?’

  ‘Gold jewellery and some petty cash.’

  ‘Where is her husband?’

  Padma’s husband Ashok was sitting in the bedroom with his face buried in his hands. His eyes were red from recent tears. He slowly looked up when Gopi Reddy walked in with Inspector Kannan. He looked dazed and distressed. The police, after receiving information from the press about Padma’s murder, had informed Mr. Ashok Manepally about his wife’s death and he had rushed back from office immediately. Then in his presence they had broken open the door to find Padma’s dead body.

  Gopi Reddy begun, ‘I am extremely sorry to hear about your wife. But we need to ask you questions so that we can find the murderer as soon as possible.’ Ashok nodded to indicate that he understood. He looked like a sensitive soul and a man of very few words.

  ‘Mr. Manepally, where do you work?’

  ‘I work in a small printing press in the arts department. I take care of the artwork like brochures, flyers etc.’

  ‘Which printing press?’

  ‘Sai Vinayak Printing Press in Lakdi Ka Pul area.’

  ‘What kind of books do they print?’

  ‘Mostly educational books like books of alphabets, nursery rhymes etc.’

  ACP Reddy nodded. ‘I know that area. There are a lot of printing presses in that area.’ Ashok nodded.

  ‘So tell us something about your wife.’

  ‘Padma was a simple girl. We got married around two years back. She really took such good care of me. I loved her so much.’ There were tears in Ashok’s eyes. He quickly brushed them away with the back of his hand. ‘You have to find the murderer. I beg of you. She did not deserve to die like this.’

  ‘We will do our best.’ ACP Reddy said gently. ‘Was she a housewife?’ he asked again.

  Ashok nodded in the affirmative.

  ‘You don’t have kids?’

  Ashok nodded, ‘Yes we had been trying for a baby. She was very fond of kids and wanted to have at least two children. She was an only child and had been lonely.’

  ‘Even now I cannot believe that she is dead,’ he said. Again tears welled up in Ashok’s eyes as he realised suddenly that Padma would never become a mother.

  Gopi Reddy glanced at Kannan who looked terribly sad as well. It was as if both of them were thinking the same thing - how the murderer could be so cruel as to take a young, innocent life without any remorse.

  Mentally shaking himself, he focussed on the task in hand, and asked, ‘Did she have a cell phone?’

  ‘Yes.’ Kannan responded – ‘The police had confiscated the phone. Here it is.’

  It was an expensive phone. On seeing the phone Ashok again broke down. ‘It was my birthday gift to her – for being such a lovely wife to me. I gifted it to her just two months back. She had turned twenty five. She was fond of smart phones. I really could not afford it. But I took a loan to buy this for her.’

  ‘How come the murderer took cash yet left the phone behind?’

  Kannan said, ‘The phone was found above the shelf of the wash area. Padma must have kept the phone there while she was doing the washing. The murderer missed the phone I guess.’

  ‘Hmm...Send it along to the forensic lab to see if it can give throw up some data regarding the murder.’

  ‘Can we look around the apartment?’ Reddy asked Ashok now.

  ‘Feel free, please. Do whatever you need to do to find the monster that killed my Padma. I just wish I had died instead of her. She had a whole lifetime ahead of her.’ Ashok’s eyes again filled up with tears as he looked at the photo of himself with Padma kept by the bedside table. Reddy glanced at the photo. She had a small heart shaped face, with huge eyes and a small sharp nose. Reddy was reminded of actress Deepika Padukone. Padma had been a beautiful woman. Again Reddy sighed regretfully at the loss of the promising young life.

  The apartment consisted of a bedroom with an attached bathroom, a tiny sitting room and a kitchen. The Manepally’s were clearly not very well off. But everything was neat and clean and tidy. Padma had been working in the kitchen and a set of plastic jars for storing food items stood on the self as if she was in the process of storing food when the doorbell had rung.

  ‘Lucky the gas stove was not on when the killer arrived. Else there could have been a bigger accident,’ Gopi Reddy commented.

  Seeing nothing unusual about the apartment, the two policemen went back to the drawing room. The medical examiner had finished his examination. The body was being shifted to the morgue for autopsy.

  ‘So what do you think Doctor?’ Reddy asked.

  ‘She has been hit first with a blunt object. Once she fell down, she was strangled.’

  ‘So you think that the death was due to strangulation?’ The doctor nodded.

  ‘How long has she been dead?’

  ‘I need to examine further but I would say she was killed around 11 am.’

  ‘Looks like the murderer deliberately chose this time as most of the folks would be in schools, offices or colleges then.’

  ‘Wonder why the security guard did not notice anything.’

  A constable was sent to fetch the security guard for questioning. The security guard was old and lived in a tiny room at the back of the apartment. He said he had gone to the bathroom for a few minutes when the murderer must have entered unnoticed. As he had a sugar problem, he needed to go to the bathroom frequently. When questioned about a backup he laughed a little bitterly and said that there were no backups. He monitored the gate from 8 am till 8 pm and then the night guard came. They could not get any more information from him. Avoiding the paparazzi and their questions, ACP Reddy and inspector Kannan moved towards the waiting police car.

  Inspector Kannan said, ‘The murderer must have been keeping a watch. He must have entered the building the moment the watchman moved.’

  ‘That would be a foolish thing to do. He could have been easily seen. A very brazen killer.’

  ‘Or it might be that the murderer had done his homework really well and had watched the security guard to understand his routine before striking.’

  ‘Possible. This is such a busy area, that a stranger loitering around will not raise too much suspicion.’

  After a pause, Inspector Kannan asked, ‘Do you think that the husband killed her?’

  Reddy shook his head. ‘If he killed her, why send a letter to the Telangana Times saying that he will kill an old woman next? Makes no sense to me. Still it would not hurt to look into his. Whenever a wife is killed, ninety nine percent of the time, the husband is the killer.’ Reddy said somewhat cynically.

  ‘Good point Reddy sir. Maybe Ashok himself wrote the letter to the press and is trying to deflect suspicion from himself – who knows? Though he looks likes he won’t hurt a fly, nowadays you never know. I will try to find out what he was doing around the time of the murder.’

  Reddy nodded his head in approval. ‘You do that. And please keep me posted.’ With that the two men parted ways.

  Reddy went back to his office and updated the Commissioner. Next day the Commissioner called a conference of all senior members of the Hyderabad Police Force. The matter was discussed in detail.

  ‘There is no doubt that there is an attention seeking random murderer around. What steps do we plan to take?’ The Commissioner looked around the faces of the assembled policemen.

  As nobody said anything, the Commissioner looked at Gopi Reddy, ‘Well, Reddy what is your opinion?’

  Reddy shook his head. ‘It is difficult to say. Hyderabad is such a vast area. To look for a murderer on 15th April would be like looking for needle in a haystack.’

  Inspector Satish Rao, who headed the Begumpet Police Station, spoke up, ‘A small suggestion.’ All
faces turned to him. ‘We can deploy police patrol in the old Hyderabad area. The murderer seems more comfortable in that area. Maybe he is a resident of that area and hence chose his victim in Charminar.

  ‘But remember we are dealing with a possible madman. It is quite possible that the place Charminar was just a coincidence. There is no clue regarding the motive.’ Gopi Reddy said.

  ‘Does a madman need any motive to kill?’ the Commissioner asked sceptically.

  Reddy said, ‘Do you remember the Raman Raghav case in Mumbai? He felt that other people were trying to put homosexual temptations in his way so that he may succumb and get converted to a woman. Hence he killed them. And many of them were not even gay. It was just his perception that his victims were gay. He used to say that divine forces urged him to kill these people and that he killed them at the behest of God. So yes, even a mad random killer will have a motive even though his logic may be incomprehensible to sane people’

  ‘At least we can start patrolling the streets of Old Hyderabad. I do not think we can do anything more than that. Keep an eye on unkempt looking persons. Though going by the email that he sent to the press, I would say that this person would look educated and normal.’

  ACP Reddy uttered a groan, ‘Old Hyderabad is such a huge area. It is also fairly crowded. I am not sure how much the police can cover.’

  ‘We must do what we can,’ the Commissioner said sharply.

  Kannan said, ‘The Charminar police will keep an eye on Padma’s family as well just in case they are involved in this. And I also found out that Ashok had gone to office quite late on 1st April, the day Padma was murdered. In fact he reached office at 11:30. When asked, why he had been late, he said that the bus he had been travelling in had a break down and he had to change buses twice to get to office from Charminar.’

  Kannan paused as if waiting for effect. All heads were turned towards him eagerly then he said, ‘And I found out one more thing. Padma’s mother died recently. She had her own house in Haffizpet. When she died, she left the house to Padma. Now that Padma is dead, the house by default goes to Ashok.’

  ‘Did you go and check the house?’

  ‘Yes, the house itself is in a dilapidated condition. But because the area has developed rapidly over the last few years, it will fetch at least 50-60 lakhs.’

  Gopi Reddy whistled. ‘That gives enough motive for murder.’

  Kannan nodded eagerly. ‘And ninety percent of the time the husband is generally responsible for the wife’s murder. I am very much inclined to think that Ashok has dreamt up this random killer story and is using this to hide his own crime.’

  ‘In that case there may be no second murder!’ The Commissioner said optimistically.

  Reddy shook his head and said, ‘I am sure that another murder will happen. Let us gear up and try to prevent this murder – when it happens.’

  The Commissioner said, ‘One more thing – if any homicide happens on 15th April, do not treat it as an ordinary case, inform Gopi Reddy immediately.’

  The conference broke up soon after this.

  Satish Rao and Reddy came from the meeting and headed for a smoke outside.

  Satish turned towards Reddy and said, ‘What do you think?’

  Gopi Reddy shook his head slowly and said, ‘I am very much afraid…this is not going to end any time soon. Random murders are the hardest ones to solve….’

  2

  SATYA’S NARRATIVE

  FRIDAY 1ST APRIL 2016

  MORNING

  My name is Satya and I am a drug addict. I wake up to the unmistakable feelings of withdrawal. My body is covered in sweat, but I am freezing. My stomach is doing somersaults and my muscles ache. I hate waking up like this. It’s a good thing I saved the Mephedrone I bought last night. I’d hoped to make it last until later, but I have to get well. I climb out of bed, grind the pill into a fine powder, roll up a Rs.10 note and breathe life back into my body. I instantly feel better…but the euphoria quickly fades. I’m officially out of “drugs.”

  I am a door to door salesman somehow eking out a living. I was not always like this. In fact I had a good childhood. My mother became a widow when I was just six years old. I barely remember my father. Just a vague shadowy figure who used to laugh and play with me. People say that I am the spitting image of him. After his death my lonely, mousy mother transferred all her love and devotion to me and I was spoilt rotten. We were not well off but she ensured that I lacked for nothing. I studied in a posh English medium school. My mother worked double shifts as a nurse to provide for me.

  But when I was about to join college, she was diagnosed with cancer. She died within a month of the diagnosis. I suddenly found myself all alone in the world. I could not cope with this loss and I turned to drugs to overcome my grief and loneliness. My maternal uncle, who took me under his wings, admitted me to a drug rehabilitation centre, and tapered me off the drugs. He then made sure I studied and that I got my bachelor’s degree and then he arranged a good job for me by begging some influential people he knew. Bless him, he even got me married. Once my body was drug free, I found that I had a talent for selling. Of course, my good looks and public school accent also helped. I excelled at my job. But within a few months of my marriage, I again succumbed to drugs. Once a drug addict, always a drug addict. The drugs take over your life. There is no escape.