East Delhi in the grip of crime wave

NEW DELHI, February 26: Though only 270 cases under the Indian Penal Code were reported from east Delhi in January, the lowest in all the ni...

NEW DELHI, February 26: Though only 270 cases under the Indian Penal Code were reported from east Delhi in January, the lowest in all the nine districts, an all-time high of 13 murders have been reported in the period between January 1 and February 16 this year.

“East district witnesses waves in crime. We seem to be riding a wave now. But many of these murders are imported. Someone kills someone elsewhere and dumps the body here,” says P K Bharadwaj, DCP (East).

Police say most murders that have occurred recently are intriguing. Many of the victims have marks on their necks and hands or something inscribed on the body.

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In the Gandhinagar double murder case, the police have failed to reach any conclusions.

On February 17, a 74-year-old man and his 60-year-old sister were found dead in their Gandhinagar home. The duo had sold off a part of their property in Gandhinagar and were living off it.

“It was the only house in a lane of shops. We suspect some commercial interest involved in the case,” saidthe DCP. The involvement of a property dealer also cannot be ruled out, he added. The property dealers in the area are quite aggressive. One of them even contested elections this year.

The motive, police claim, is not likely to be robbery as the jewellery has not been touched. Though there were several trunks in the room, only one particular trunk has been opened and some documents are missing. The police has also not made any breakthroughs in the Samaspur village case in which an eight-year-old girl was found dead in front of her own house. She had gone out to play and two hours later her mother found her body kept in a sitting position in front of the house. “We have not been able to figure out where she was killed and how the person managed to get her body back to the house. It is a very intriguing case,” the DCP said. The police have failed to even determine the motive of murder. Medical reports, however, rule out rape. In another gruesome case in Shakkarpur village, where a four-year-old child waskilled when a bullet pierced her after passing through her father’s hand, the police have not made any arrests yet.

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“The father’s version cannot be believed as a bullet cannot pass through one body and then pass onto another leading to death of the latter,” said R S Krishna, additional DCP, East. Though the prime suspect is the father, the police are yet to reach a conclusion.

A major obstacle in nabbing criminals is the fact that 40 per cent of the people living in east Delhi are “faceless”. They are not stable, have no roots and have moved in to stay in east Delhi from some other place.

“There is no societal control over a faceless population, the DCP said. This is the reason why there are so many cases of dowry deaths, robbery and snatching.