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Journalism of Courage
NEW DELHI, MARCH 16: Something stinks in the area bordering Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. Villagers in Ghazipur say that the desolate buffer zone is a dumping ground for bodies. It’s easy to toss a corpse on either side of the Ghazipur highway, as there is hardly any human habitation here.
The body of Outlook cartoonist Irfan Hussain was found at 11 a.m. on Saturday, around a kilometre away from where he made his last call home on Monday night. At 2.47 p.m. yesterday another decomposed body was found near the dirty drain that meanders to the Capital from UP.
It was so decomposed that the police could only ascertain that it was a male body, 5’4” in height. Ram Singh, who lives in Ghazipur village, said: “The body has been lying there for days. We have all seen it.”
Asked why none of the villagers informed the police immediately, he casually said, “So many bodies are found all along this highway. Sometimes when we tell the police, they tell us to mind our own business. Finally when the stench getsunbearable, they will come to have a look.”
His wife Raj Rani sits next to him in the afternoon sun, patting cow dung cakes into shape. “We have been noticing this over the past five years. People commit crimes in other parts of the city and come here to discard the bodies. And then we are harassed and questioned.”
She talks about an incident that occurred two years ago. A stench led the villagers to an unusually large plastic bag. They were horrified to see a hand sticking out. “The police came a few days later, and we were told that it was the body of an 18-19-year-old girl.”
Raj Rani points to the area where the girl’s body was found. It is just a few metres down the incline from where Irfan’s body was discovered. The area is deserted. Cows graze on the grassy incline that ends at a gutter. Across the gutter is the long and winding road that leads to Ghazipur village. And on the other side of the dusty track, the villagers busy themselves shaping heaps of cow dung into cakes.
Across thehighway are acres of land where garbage is dumped. Apart from the routine municipality trucks that quietly enter and leave, there is little movement here. While there is heavy traffic on the highway throughout the day and night, things get very quiet on both side of the road. Even in the afternoon the sounds of rubber zooming over tar and impatient honks, seem distant and barely discernible in Ghazipur village. So it is relatively easy to leave a body here and then leave unnoticed.
The police deny that they are callous about bodies being found here and insist that the figure is not unusually high. A senior official said, “No figures are immediately available. But bodies are found routinely all over the city, not just here. The drain area is a problem. Often bodies float down from UP, and we are saddled with the problem.”
Ghazipur villagers have a different story to tell. Avtaar Singh said: “Unidentified bodies are a problem for the police. They would rather get rid of them. They place them in the drainin the hope that they will float across the border.” The police call these allegations laughable.
Locals say that they would not like to get involved. Ram Singh said, “It is sad. So many of these people have died a death that is worse than that of even an animal. But what can we do?”
