The Hindu : Purse gives the killer away

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jun 22, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad

Purse gives the killer away

The number of murders on the city outskirts is on the rise. In one of such cases, a woman was found dead near Shamshabad.<145,4> K. SRINIVAS REDDY writes how the police unravelled the mystery behind it.

Call it decline in moral standards or lack of fear for law or blame it on the urban anonymity, taking life of someone has become a normal thing nowadays. Be it a killing due to a petty quarrel or frivolous reasons, those who plan and kill apparently think that the vast open lands in the suburbs are the safest places to carry out the murders.

The number of murder cases in the police station areas surrounding the city is increasing alarmingly. While some cases remain unsolved, in some instances police are lucky to solve them and arrest the accused. Similar was the murder of a woman whose body was found on the city outskirts near Shamshabad town.

The killer had apparently planned everything to the last detail. The scene of murder was an isolated place and none had seen the woman and the killer going there. When the police found the body a month ago, it appeared to be a case with a solitary clue. The victim's head was smashed with a boulder making the identification next to impossible. The only advantage for the police was that some villagers noticed the body within 24 hours of the murder.

While the body was shifted, the police made a thorough search of the place and found a purse, which had no money, but a crumpled paper on which a telephone number was scribbled. For the police this was the only clue. When they dialled the number and informed that the number was found in the purse of a murder victim, the person on the other side was confused. The number turned out to be that of a steel shop in old city.

The person, who answered the phone, told police that none in his family was missing. That being a shop telephone number, anyone could have noted down the number. The solitary clue appeared to have led the police into a cul-de-sac. But the police were not willing to let go of the only clue they had. When they went there with the photograph of the victim, the shop owner's father vaguely remembered that the woman used to visit the shop, but he could not recall any more details.

It was sheer exasperation for the police as they felt he was telling the truth. There was no way they could find out who could the victim be. To make matters worse, there were no pending complaints of woman missing matching the description of the murder victim too.

But the case was to get solved in a jiffy some days later. The police learnt that a woman went missing from Babujinagar. Her two sons were practically living on the mercy of the locality people. Could the murder victim be their mother? The police sceptical, but they gave it a try. A police team rushed to Babujinagar with the photograph and showed it to the children. The boys immediately recognised and said it was Vijaya Laxmi, their mother.

As police officers sat down for a patient talk with the children, they said their father resided in the old city, while they along with their mother lived in Babujinagar. Something smelt fishy for the policemen. They took the children to the steel shop in the old city whose telephone number was found in the woman's purse.

The children readily identified the shop and also told the police that it belonged to their father, Ganesh. By now everything was becoming clearer for the police. Ganesh, who lived with his first wife, was having an affair with Vijayalaxmi who was living in Babujinagar. Ganesh was immediately picked up and he too saw that the game was up.

He came out with a clean confession. After having an affair for quite a long time, he thought he should get rid of Vijayalaxmi who was demanding for payment of money for her livelihood. Having decided to eliminate her, he took her to the isolated area on the pretext of having some liquor. Unknown to her, he bought two bottles of beer and mixed some sedatives in one of them. He made the woman drink that bottle of beer and as she slipped into sleep, he lifted a rock and hurled it on her head and simply drove away from the place, police say quoting the confessional statement. Ganesh had been charged with murder and is now in judicial custody.

(The case was investigated by Shamshabad SI S. Ashok Kumar and Rajendranagar Circle-Inspector V. Surendar Reddy.)

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