|
THE NATION : PHOOLAN DEVI
MURDER
They Done It
Investigators piece together the puzzle, while Phoolan's
relatives battle for inheritance. Amid the chaos one thing is certain:
the murder doesn't seem a revenge for Behmai.
By Sayantan Chakravarty
|
|
|
|
|
THE MASTERMIND: Pankaj is no stranger to the world of crime
|
Surrenders, alibis.
disclosures-the Phoolan Devi murder case threw up more questions than
answers last week. The first to proclaim himself the Bandit Queen's assassin
was Pankaj Singh alias Sher Singh Rana. This 25-year-old law student of
D.A.V. College in Dehradun-also a liquor vendor from Roorkee-offered graphic
details on how and why the post-noon murder was planned and executed.
And of his subsequent getaway from the crime scene.
To the investigators it became clear that they
were dealing with a Rajput who had not forgotten the massacre of 20 Thakurs
in Behmai two decades ago. He was the vengeful young man who had planned
his actions to the last detail-he had also prepared a "genuine alibi"
for prosecutors. Pankaj was quick to surrender.
His arrest amid flashing camera lights at Dehradun's Press Club on July
27-barely 44 hours after the murder-put him in the police spotlight. And
three days later, three of his accomplices also surrendered at Saharanpur.
Their confounding disclosures aside, it became clear that the four men
were indeed involved in the killing.
|
|
|
BROTHERS IN ARMS: The possibility of political
backing in Phoolan's murder by Pankaj and his accomplices (above)
is not being ruled out
|
Ever since July 25-the day of the murder-the
probe has thrown up more characters and many probable reasons for the
four men raining bullets on the dacoit-turned-MP. A political backing,
for one. Keshav Chauhan, a Samajwadi Party (SP) worker from Mirzapur (the
Lok Sabha constituency that Phoolan represented), was present at her 44
Ashoka Road residence at the time of the murder. He had allegedly stashed
away two of the four weapons used in the murder in the garage.
Investigations revealed that Pankaj had driven
from Roorkee at 5.30 a.m. on the day of the crime with two SP activists
in a green Maruti car (CIM 907) and dropped Phoolan to Parliament in the
same vehicle. At 1.30 p.m. he shot her and sped away in the same car,
closely followed by a white Maruti car that had also been driven down
from Roorkee the same day. The assassins then abandoned the car, took
an autorickshaw, changed buses and finally caught up with the white Maruti
near Ghaziabad. Incidentally, the second car had been robbed from a resident
of Rajpur Road, Dehradun, days before the incident.
|
METRO TODAY
Web
Exclusives
