Monday, February 12, 2024

Death as Reward of Love

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 

 - Translated into English by Shri Pallavi Gupta

 

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1 comment:

સન્ડે સ્પેશિયલ

  ‘ જો વિશ્વે બીજી હેલન કેલર તૈયાર કરવી હોય તો તેને માટે મિસ એન. સુલીવાન જેવી શિક્ષિકા    જોઈએ.” :    એલેકઝાન્ડર ગ્રેહામ બેલ.       સાવ સા...

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