New Delhi: The most foul murder of Sheena Bora by her own mother Indrani Mukherjea and the mystery surrounding it have set the tongues wagging across India. It is unlikely to stop in near future. Sensational crimes always catch the public imagination and remain in the collective memory of the society. Even after several decades, people remember such foul murders.
India's financial capital Mumbai (then known as Bombay) has seen at least half a dozen such sensational murders since Independence. The first most infamous and sensational case to hit the national headlines was KM Nanavati case. A dashing and well to do naval officer, Kawas Manekshaw Nanavati, hit the headlines after he shot dead his wife's lover in 1959. Often described as 'a crime of passion', the Nanavati case inspired two Hindi movies and several books. People still discuss Nanavati case, and is also often mentioned by criminal lawyers across India.
According to a report in Times of India, Kawas Manekshaw Nanavati, a highly decorated naval officer discovered that his English wife, Sylvia was having an affair with a rich playboy Prem Ahuja. It didn't help that Ahuja had been friends with the officer for 15 years. One day, Nanavati dropped his family to a cinema hall, collected his revolver from his ship and went to Ahuja's house to confront him. Ahuja, who had just stepped out of a shower, had a towel wrapped around his waist. Nanavati confronted him with the question: "Will you marry Sylvia and accept our children?" Ahuja's reply was casual and callous: "Will I marry every woman I sleep with?" Nanavati then fired three shots at Ahuja, killing him instantly, following which he surrendered to the police.
This case made the career of India's top criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani, who led the prosecution in Nanavati case. Even street hawkers cashed in on the popularity of the case by selling toy Nanavati revolvers and Ahuja towels. There is no doubt that it had all the ingredients of real life pot-boiler.
In early 1970s, Vidya Jain's murder by her own husband and Delhi's famous eye surgeon Dr NS Jain shook the nation. Dr Jain, who was the personal eye surgeon of then President of India VV Giri, had hired two people to kill his 45-year-old wife. According to reports, he had an affair with his employee and a widow Chandresh Sharma.
A report in 'Hindustan Times' says it was in 1973, that Dr NS Jain, a renowned eye surgeon, conspired with his colleague Chandresh Sharma and hired killers to murder his wife Vidya. Jain was sentenced to life imprisonment but let off after 11 years for good behaviour. Hired assassins Kartar and Ujagar Singh were sentenced to death. I had met all of them in Tihar Jail: Dr Jain, Chandresh and Kartar and Ujagar Singh. The assassins, I recall, had told me that Jain had not kept his part of the deal and paid them much less than what he had promised: “Siraf paanch sau rupaye diye (he paid only Rs 500)”. They also pleaded that something be done to save them from the gallows. Nothing happened. They were executed.
In the same decade, the kidnapping and subsequent brutal killing of two children, Sanjay and Geeta Chopra, also shook the national capital and rest of India. In our collective memory 'Billa and Ranga' have now become synonyms for murderers.
In the late 1980s, powerful politician Sanjay Singh was accused of murdering national badminton champion Syed Modi in Lucknow. According to reports he had an affair with Modi's wife Ameeta. Even though the CBI had charge sheeted both, they were acquitted by the courts. In 2009, Bhagwati Singh, one of the henchmen, was held guilty of the murder but no motive for the killing was ever established.
Naina Sahni murder case in the 1990s hit the national headlines as well. A promising youth Congress leader Sushil Sharma had murdered and burnt the body of his wife Naina Sahni in a tandoor owen of a famous hotel in New Delhi.
Early 2000 witnessed the sensational murder of three women – Priyadarshini Mattoo, Shivani Bhatnagar and Jessica Lall. Due to intense media pressure, the accused were sent to jail in these cases.
In early 2006, a top leader of the BJP and former Union Cabinet minister Pramod Mahajan was murdered by his own younger brother Praveen Mahajan at the former's house in Mumbai. Praveen Mahajan was later convicted and died in jail due to ill health. Even today, nobody knows the real motive for the murder.
In May 2008, the mysterious murder of a teenage girl Aarushi Talwar in Noida hit the national headlines. Her parents have been convicted for the murder of their only daughter and currently serving life term at a jail. Journalist Avirook Sen's latest book on the Aarushi case gives a clean chit to her parents.
Former Punjab minister and former chief of SGPC Bibi Jagir Kaur also faced charges of murdering her daughter. However, the court ruled that she was guilty of forcing her daughter to undergo an abortion and illegal confinement. She was acquitted of the murder charges, but had to resign from her post at the SGPC due to the murder allegations. Kaur was awarded five years imprisonment and also fined Rs 5,000 by the special CBI court.
Kaur's daughter, Harpreet, died under mysterious circumstances on April 20, 2000 and her mother had claimed that she had died while being taken to hospital while suffering from a severe bout of food poisoning. Contrary to normal procedure an autopsy was not carried out on the body and Harpreet's cremation was carried out. A case was registered after Kamaljeet Singh, a man claiming to be Harpreet's husband, approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court alleging that Kaur had murdered his wife since she was against their relationship and the fact that her daughter was pregnant with their child.
The high court had ordered a CBI probe into the matter. Singh also alleged that Kaur had forced her daughter to abort the foetus. However, Singh later changed his stance. Kaur and other accused Dhesi, Raipur and Sub Inspector Nishan Singh were acquited of charge under 302 IPC (murder). Kaur was convicted under section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) read with 313 (forcible abortion - causing miscarriage without woman's consent), 344 (wrongful confinement of more than 10 days) and 365 (kidnapping or abduction with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine a person). Dhesi and Raipur were convicted under section 313 (forcible abortion /causing miscarriage without woman's consent).
Both along with Singh were convicted under section 365 of the IPC (kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine a person) and awarded a sentence of three years imprisonment and fined Rs 2,000 each.
Dhesi, Raipur and Singh were also convicted under section 344 IPC (wrongful confinement for 10 or more days). The three were awarded one years imprisonment and fined Rs 1,000 each.
All the sentences of the accused would run concurrently, the court ordered.
In the 1990s, the sensational murder of Shakeere Khaleeli shook Bengaluru. Khaleeli was the grand daughter of Sir Mirza Ismail, the legendary Diwan of Mysore kingdom and Jaipur state during the British rule. She was married to a diplomat who was India's high commissioner to Australia. She left him and married a self-appointed Godman called Swamy Shraddhananda. He killed her with their stillborn baby and buried her to usurp her huge property worth several hundreds of crores. He was arrested later and sentenced to life.
In early 2000, a powerful UP minister Amarmani Tripati was arrested for murdering his girlfriend and a Hindi poet Madhumita Shukla. He is now serving life sentence in a UP jail.
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