આ આર્ટીકલ ગુજરાતીમાં વાંચવા આહી ક્લિક કરો.
Death
as Reward of Love
This story is about a small remote village of
Meghraj taluka in Aravalli district, bordering Rajasthan. One had to go to
Meghraj to buy daily necessities. A resident of this hamlet, Mittal was a
college student. One afternoon, she headed to Meghraj to get her documents
photocopied and clothes stitched.
At evening
the family naturally got worried for their young daughter was out since
afternoon and was yet to return. Their worries increased as they found her
phone was switched off. The family contacted all her friends but all went in
vain.
After waiting
for a while, they began to look for her. They searched everywhere but couldn’t
track her down. The search continued for
the whole night until dawn, still her whereabouts were unknown. Her family fell
into hardships due to the various doubts and suspicions.
About the
afternoon Shailesh, a young man, showed up with her news. He informed that he had
seen two young men of nearby village abducting Mittal, after knocking her out,
on a motorcycle and then driving towards the forest. On hearing that, her
family felt as if the land beneath them vanished.
Shailesh insisted on helping her family.
He led everyone towards the forest. The scene they witnessed over there almost
made everyone faint. Mittal’s corpse was hanging from the tree by her dupatta. It
was very evidently a case of murder and not of suicide. The suspicion of it
being a murder case became clearer as her corpse was touching the ground and
her legs were bent.As Mittal was a bright girl in her life, she had her dreams.
But someone had killed them also along with her.
Her family
immediately informed the police and lodged an F.I.R. against the culprits indicated
by Shailesh.
That news spread rapidly everywhere. The family made a resolution about not to cremate their daughter’s dead body until the culprits were caught. Assessing the seriousness of the incident, the police immediately arrived at the spot. This case also was a challenge for the district police. The police chief Sanjay Kharat assured to nab the culprits at the earliest and dealt with her family with great tact and persuasion.
The investigation was handed over to LCB C.P. Vaghela and PST A.M. Desai. They formed different teams and entrusted the task to the informers.
The culprits indicated by Shailesh were caught by police. They were probed. After intense interrogation the police concluded that the two youths, they had nabbed, were innocent and the real culprit was still to be discovered. The case was now getting more complicated. No other lead regarding the case was found. The police didn’t lose their patience.
The constant presence of Shailesh at Mittal’s murder place was found to be dubious. Everyone was shocked after knowing this. Is this the same Shailesh who was providing her family and the police the first-hand information?
The police cleverly captured Shailesh. When they interrogated him in their formidable style, like a smart dumbass he started chirping like a parrot. He confessed having committed the murder. According to him, he was in love with Mittal for almost one and half years and both used to meet frequently. Even on the day of murder both had met in the forest on the outskirts of the village. During that time, a message from another male friend of Mittal had got flashed on her mobile. A suspicion arose in Shailesh’s mind about Mittal having an affair with another man as well. He could not tolerate the fact of seeing some other man’s message flashing in her phone. His anger rose to the sky, and he had slapped her fiercely on her face. The impact of the slap was so strong that she had collapsed and fell unconscious.
Her unconsciousness had frightened him. He had thought that she had died. To avoid getting trapped in her murder case he had tied her dupatta firmly around her neck and had hung her from the tree. He had invented the whole story so as not to get involved in the crime. He had falsely joined the family in search for Mittal but could not save himself from the smartness of the police. Her phone was also recovered from his house and finally a rogue killer was sent behind bars.
It is only on
the vine of trust and faith that the flower of love blossoms. This is an ideal
example of a tragedy when mistrust and suspicion ruins sacred relationship of
love. The Aravalli police has set an example by solving many such complicated
cases, thereby instilling faith in the police.
- An article in Gujarati by Ishwar Prajapati
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