Something is blind. Either the murder. Or you. Or that godforsaken thing called conscience!

THIS PIECE OF news was mostly front page in Chandigarh’s broadsheets – a cop’s body had been found, it was a blind murder, and within hours, the city police had solved it. The police chief, a woman, had commended her officers for such an outstanding job.

After all, it was ‘one of them’ who had been killed in so brutal a fashion.

And then, I made that cardinal mistake: I read the story. It was in yesterday’s newspapers. In some, it was the top story on page 1.

I waited till this morning because somewhere at the back of my mind, there was still a sliver of a hope — that someone in this city of a million and a quarter plus people will get a conscience attack. Conscience, you see, is something like epilepsy. Anyone can suffer an attack in a fit.

Absence of such epileptic attacks is what we measure depravity with.

A few years ago, all through the Jeffrey Epstein-Prince Andrew saga that involved a train of young vulnerable nubile women girls, some just 13 and 14 years old, it was very hard to find a silver lining.

Epstein was arrested on July 6, 2019. When, to everyone’s shock, news broke after just over a month, on August 10, that Epstein had committed suicide in jail, I devised a personal explanation: he might have suffered that epileptic moment.

There were headlines suggesting certain uncharacteristic injuries on Epstein’s body. I thought we haven’t seen this weapon called ‘conscience’ by which he might have died. Literature tells us it is stupendously sharp and cuts very deep.

But let us stay with the dead cop in Chandigarh. I am presuming you might not have read the story. After all, a million and a quarter people couldn’t have misplaced their sense of incredulity, even if conscience is something we keep forgetting where we last shoved it in. It’s mundane stuff. Murder solving is the stuff thrillers are made of.

How Two Twains Met!

A.) A cop was on duty at the Panchkula-Chandigarh border, near the Housing Board lightpoint. His duty shift was from 8 pm to 8 am, but sometime around 2 am, he called in sick and left for home on a bike. He had reached Sector 16 of Chandigarh when the other twain met.

B.) Two guys went to Anandpur Sahib. They wanted to return to Patiala, and so they boarded a train. For some inexplicable reason, they expected the train to halt at Fatehgarh Sahib, so they ended up in Chandigarh. Now, they wanted to go to Gurdwara Sahib, Sohana, so they started walking from the railway station. Somehow, they ended up in Sector 16.

It is here they spotted the cop going home on his bike. Or, rather, it was the cop who spotted them. The twains had met – a little after 2 am, in the dead of the night. Remember that this was a cop who was sick and who was on his way home. But he was our man in uniform, always conscientious to a fault. He wanted to know what the two strangers were doing in Chandigarh at that hour.

The two – a 22-year-old and the other a 19-year-old – asked this cop, who was in his uniform, for a lift at that ungodly hour.

The cop was so kind he agreed to drop them at Gurdwara Sahib, Sohana. At 3 am, this sick cop, who had cut short his duty and was going home, agreed to give a lift to two youth – who he suspected were up to no good – way off his route.

Then, instead of going to Gurdwara Sahib, Sohana, he took them to Gurdwara Sahib, Phase-6, Mohali. It is possible that the two strangers not well versed with the town, might not have known the difference. Then the cop stopped the bike, parked it, took the duo to the jungle area near Dudhadhari Mandir, Sector 56. Then he insisted that he wanted to talk to them regarding some secret.

Notice the words: “some secret.”

Here goes the news item: “However, at the said spot, an altercation occurred between them. Thereafter both accused overpowered him. They also used a knife which they had purchased from Anandpur Sahib.”

(I am thinking if they just happened to have purchased a knife from Anandpur Sahib since it might have occurred to them that they could possibly land up in Chandigarh and run into a cop in the middle of the night who could, possibly, take them to a jungle and might want to discuss a secret that they might not like!!!)

“Meantime, they also attacked him with bricks, after which he fell down. Thereafter, they fled from the spot by taking his belongings, including his wallet, mobile phone and motorcycle.”

The reportage ticked all the points: the provocation was “sudden”, the scuffle was “violent”, the motorcycle had been recovered, the number plate found to be “fake”.

Here’s the icing on the cake: “UT senior superintendent of police Kanwardeep Kaur applauded the police officials for their commendable job in solving the blind murder case within days.”

The million and a quarter people residing in Chandigarh and the 378 people stopping by near a newspaper stall that day would have read that story, and found it all so normal that next day, that is, today, there is no follow up. Everything just adds up. Perfectly.

No epileptic fits of that thing I mentioned!

Of course, I know that it happens. That a town with an above 90 per cent literacy rate and home to multiple mastheads masquerading as journalism has become used to misplacing its conscience.

* * *

I had seen it happen earlier. For example, in case of that woman who had fallen off her bicycle in 2006. All of Chandigarh read about her. How could it not? After all, she was a fallen woman, isn’t it? Had she been not, we would have seen a wave of epileptic fits of you-know-what in this City Beautiful, isn’t it?

City journalists met this frail woman at the Sector 16 Government Hospital in Chandigarh. She was crying. “Saheb raped me,” she was telling everyone. Monsoons were on. There was a drizzle outside. She was shaking, but her story did not falter as she told the vivid details, repeatedly, to one after the other person . The “Saheb” was the son of a former chief minister who, at the time of the alleged rape, was the Governor of a southern Indian state.

A woman had been assaulted and raped. She – a masseuse providing her services at the house of the son of a former chief minister of Punjab – bleeding after the assault and rape, had landed up at that hospital.

The “Saheb” was an MLA, and a big time, upcoming youth leader with impeccable credentials — well read, dad a governor and an author, mom also a politician.

The woman’s statements were recorded. Everything was in writing. The woman stuck to her version of the events. Elections to the state Assembly were five months away. “Saheb” was an MLA of the party in Opposition. His father had been a close colleague of the Leader of the Opposition. It was going to be a do or die battle. The careers of Amarinder Singh and Parkash Singh Badal were at stake. This was 2006.

But the silence was deafening. An FIR was registered, but no one tried to take any political advantage. Politicians across the divide remained mum. No one demanded the resignation of “Saheb”. The woman stuck to her version of events. The details matched. There were no loose ends.

“Saheb” was arrested. Section 376 of Criminal Procedure Code. RAPE.

The woman gave statements. Investigations proceeded.

Imagine the pressures that must have been brought on to the sleuths, the cops, the prosecution! Or perhaps you are such a nice person that you think why anyone would try to pressurise the cops or the prosecution! (We have a very special love for such innocence. I actually have a word for such innocent people, but it is not very printable!)

Father – The governor of a major and politically important state; Mom a politico.

Son – An MLA who had once led a team of armed, apparently very religious men, to take over the Akal Takht with sheer force.

An Indian state that was indebted to the dad.

The state machinery that knew that the MLA son addresses both, the then CM and the then Leader of the Opposition, as “Uncle ji.”

And still the case was too blatant. “An open and shut case” was how police officials were describing the case to the journalists. It is exactly what the journalists were writing in their reports. Those reports are still very much available to casual google-searchers.

Finally, the investigators did not have any option but to state what was so blatantly clear. So, in the court, the prosecution presented its case. A 100-page chargesheet. The victim’s statement. The medical reports. The DNA report. The opinion of the medical board. The reports of the CFSL, the Central Forensics Science Lab. And a long line up of witnesses.

Journalists declared the MLA’s career was over. Daddy kuchh nahi kar paye. Uncles ji bhee kaam na aaye.

And then, suddenly, from nowhere, a bicycle ran into the story.

No one had seen this bicycle. In fact, people did not even ask if it was a sporty red one or a plebeian black one. All I remember is that that entire case got trampled under the wheels of this bicycle.

Aaj tak nahi pata chala ke woh kambakht bicycle chala kaun raha tha, woh sadak kaun si thi, mehla footpath par kyon nahi thi, cycle wale ne ghanti maari thi ke nahi… BAS WOH CYCLE AAYA AUR KISSA SAB TAMAAM HUYA!!!

It was a very wintry December that year, the kind in which hands, feet and senses go numb. Well, I am not sure about hand and feet, but I did see senses suddenly going numb in newsrooms.

In the court, the woman told the judge that she had had a slight problem with her memory recall.
She said “Saheb” had not raped her.
In fact, “Saheb” never assaulted her.
In fact, what had really happened was that she had fallen from a bicycle.
In fact, such was the fall that she had started bleeding.
In fact, the “Saheb” was so kind that when he saw her bleeding, he made sure that she was rushed to the hospital.
In fact, that’s how she had landed at that Sector 16 Govt Hospital that rainy day back during the monsoons.

The prosecution said she had signed the statement in which she had narrated the entire incident. There was no mention of any bicycle in that statement.

The defendant said the statement must have been taken through coercion or forged.

The woman said she did not know what she was signing.

The prosecution said it had video-taped the entire process.

BUT WHO WAS INTERESTED?

The ruling party in Punjab was not interested.
The opposition party in Punjab was not interested.
The governor sahib with the flowing white beard was not interested.
And the woman was not interested.

The judge could no more be of any help. After all, the victim was no more the victim. There was no rape. So, “Saheb” walked free. His white kurta reflecting the eternal sunshine of the spotless career in politics.

The intrepid reporters in some newspapers’ newsroom cried hoarse. They said they will follow it through. They said they will find out the truth.

But the editors were not interested.

“ARREY BHAI, JAB COURT KA FAISLA AA GAYA HAI TO AAP KYON SHOR DAAL RAHE HAIN?” an editor of an English newspaper told a reporter in the morning meeting when he insisted on finding what really made the woman change her story.

The woman went on to live her life.

“Saheb” went on to become the general secretary of his panthic party, a religious siropa around his neck and a sword in his hand.

Not long back, one day, the ‘governor sahib’ died. The entire Punjab political spectrum paid rich tributes to him. Mourners hugged and condoled “Saheb”.

The intrepid reporters gritted their teeth. The editors penned gushing editorials, remembered the great contribution of “Saheb’s Dad” to peace.

And I am still searching for that bicycle!

If only I knew what it looked like — An Atlas? A Hercules? An Avon? A Hero?

I recalled the “Saheb’s” story today because there is a cycle in a ‘newscycle.’ It is in the nature of a cycle that it keeps coming back to haunt you.

When cops crack a case and are commended for such fine investigative work, and a city of a million and a quarter people and a score of mastheads decides to murder its conscience, one feels the cycle is repeating itself. Now, there’s no need to even make up a story. You can tell one as shoddy as two guys travelling from Anandpur Sahib to Patiala somehow stumbling into a cop in Sector 16 and then landing up with a dead corpse in the jungle.

If only Joseph Epstein had landed up in Chandigarh. Nothing would have happened to him. After all, he had friends in high places: Bill Clinton, Richard Branson, Katie Couric, George Stephanopoulos, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Britain’s Prince Andrew. Witnesses would have remembered that, in fact, he did what he did as an act of spreading love, with perhaps a little transgression of the law involved.

In The New York Post in 2011, he wrote: “I’m not a sexual predator, I’m an ‘offender. It’s the difference between a murderer and a person who steals a bagel.”

Poor guy died by suicide just for stealing a bagel. “Saheb” suffered ignominy just because a woman slipped off a bicycle. The cop died because he ran into two strangers who were in central Chandigarh because they didn’t know how to get from Anandpur Sahib to Patiala and wanted a lift past 2 am, and somehow happened to have bought a knife from Anandpur Sahib lest any cop wants to discuss a secret in a jungle enroute.

We read these stories. And then the next day’s newspaper arrives. There are other stories. Sometimes about a blind murder, which the cops are sure to solve.

Something is blind. Either the murder. Or you. Or that godforsaken thing called conscience!

A million and a quarter blind murders – that cops need not solve. These are called dead cases. Sometimes, also referred to as dead souls.

(SP Singh is a senior journalist afflicted with a weird hippocampus disease wherein stale news reports are peculiarly indexed to resonate with breaking news.) 

__________

Also Read:

Dr. Manmohan Singh: A Hero Shy of His Own Greatness

‘Yahi Hai Mera Mama’ – A commentary on Lok Sabha Elections

AAP under scrutiny; Delving into poetic justice

Hai, Modi kitna bura hai! (Agreed. But…)

Relax, My dead body won’t trouble your shoulders!

Shilanyas was a mistake, but Rajiv was not aware of unlocking Babri

ਉੱਲੂ ਨੇਤਾ ਅਤੇ ਭੇਡਮਈ ਵੋਟ

रामदेव जैसे बाबा लोग इतने मज़े में क्यों हैं?