Opinion | Crime series: It was a murder but who did it?

‘It was a lone house in the woods in a remote place in village Muhri just nine kilometres short of Katra (Vaishno Dev)i and this happened years back in fact four decades back! For what purpose it was done noone could ascertain it then but the killers had come with a motive! But was Feroze Bibi their target or someone else?’

‘It is the bungled crime that brings remorse. This surely was and the year was 1978! This story of a crime in a village was told to me by my grandmother! The police in those days was not that hyperactive as they are now but nevertheless it was a crime! What else no one knows till date and her modern day generations do not have any idea as to what happened!’

‘I distinctly remember that it was at half past nine when my grandma started telling this story and the place she was mentioning was ‘Kali Davar’ (Black watered pond) amidst a thick grove of pines and heavily covered by vegetation! At that time I never visited the place as the name itself was frightening but in the year 2009 I did just to have a look see as to what the place looked like or if someone knew as to what happened on that night! No one had a clue but one man Jarnail Singh (our relative was more descriptive as he knew about several details’

‘ I mean, imagine how some unfortunate Master Criminal would feel, on coming down to do a murder at such a place! They were three men who came to the house, stayed that night, killed the women and walked off? Whether they did something lse or not know one knows and it could never be ascertained. They did nothing to her children and there was
no loot of goods although the couple Kala and Feroze had a healthy collection of livestock!’

‘In those days that was the only house in that area and several times they were told to shift from there to a friendly neighborhood but they never listened! They said that nothing would happen to them but the snarling disaster was waiting for them! But whom had three Bakerwals come to kill? Was it Kala and Feroze became a collateral damage! Probably yes as Jairnail Singh believes!

‘The lady always said that the cup of tea on arrival at a country house is a thing which, as a rule, I particularly enjoy. I like the crackling logs, the shaded lights, the scent of buttered maize bread, the general atmosphere of leisured cosiness. But that night she was forced to pay a heavy price of her tastes!’

When her children the next morning got up they saw their mom with head slashed by an axe and several dagger injuries in her stomach! She was lying in a pool of coagulated blood with eyes staring at the roof!’

‘As per Jarnail Singh’s version it was a horrifying sight but nothing much anyone could do! She was buried near her house! Now the further generations have put a marble plaque there but it was a brutal killing! But was she the real target?

Rumors at that time were in plenty. The ones which made the loudest of sounds was that Kala (Feroze Bibi’s husband) had got the plot wrong! He owned money to those three men? Another one was that the three wanted to stay in the area but the man was refusing to give them the requisite land! And to teach a lesson to the head of the family Feroze Bibi was slaughtered with axes and daggers!

This mystery could never be solved as the three men moved away that very night, crossed over a small rivulet which flows below village Muhri and walked off! It is believed that they were spotted by the locals of village Karkyal but since no one knew as to what had happened they walked off, to where only God knows! Kala did survive but not for long and he died repenting the killing of his wife and telling people that he should have been at his home that night and also saying that they should have shifted from there! But that was not to be as his wife a livewire of the Gujjar community in village Muhri and also very dear to the Rajputs of the village died a ruthless and brutal death!

In those days such incidents were not uncommon and the cases remained unresolved! And the reason invariably was lack of information and inputs! My grandma always told something about Feroze, ‘ ahe laughed – a bit louder than I could have wished in my frail state of health, but then she was always a woman who tended to bring plaster falling from the ceiling when amused.’! I have not seen her but what little I heard makes me think that she was not a woman who deserved such a death! Life keeps travelling, people come and go but why end a life just for the heck of it and that is why I said in the beginning that it was a bungled crime!