Lall - Mattoo- Katara Murders

Jessical Lall was a model in New Delhi who was working as a celebrity barmaid at a socialite party when she was shot dead on April 29,1999. Dozens of witnesses pointed to Siddharth Vashisht alias Manu Sharma, the son of Venod Sharma, a minister in Haryana, as the murderer. Due to inadequacies in the investigation and an overall shoddy prosecution, Manu Sharma and a number of others were all acquitted by Judge S. L. Bhayana on February 21,2006.

On April 29, 1999, leading socialite Bina Ramani organized a party at her restaurant, Tamarind Court Cafe, in the Qutub area of South Delhi - it was to be a farewell party for her husband Georges Mailhot who was going abroad for six months. Several youngsters and models were serving drinks at the 'Once upon a time' bar, including Jessica Lall and her friends Malini Ramani and Shyan Munshi.

At about 0200 hours when the party was almost over, Manu Sharma with his friends Amardeep Singh, Alok Khanna, Amit Jhingan and Vikas Yadav, allegedly entered the restaurant and demanded liquor from Jessica.

Since the bar was being closed, Jessica told Sharma that no more drinks would be served. After some altercation, Sharma lost his temper and fired his gun - once in the air and the second time at Jessica. The bullet struck her temple and she died on the spot.

Sharma fled from the restaurant with his friends in a car which was later found abandoned in a Delhi suburb. During an intense hunt for Sharma over a week, three of his friends were arrested, but Sharma himself went underground. His father, Venod Sharma was asked to step down as Congress Party Chief in the state.

Eventually Manu Sharma surrendered on May 6 in Chandigharh. Subsequently the fourth person, Vikas Yadav, son of DP Yadav, another heavyweight minister from Bihar with mafia connections, also surrendered.

Manu Sharma himself apparently made a statement to police on video tape, in which he admits to having shot Jessica. The existence of this videotape is controversial, and it may not, in any event, constitute legal testimony. However, the fact that he initially admitted to having shot her is not in doubt. Subsequently however, the confession was retracted, and a not guilty plea was entered in the trial.

The Trial

Manu Sharma is the son of one of the leading politicians in the state of Haryana, Venod Sharma, belonging to the Congress Party. Earlier a minister in the National Cabinet, Venod Sharma is now a minister in the Haryana government, in charge of Power, Public Works, and the Environment. One of Manu's aunts is a daughter of erstwhile President of India, Shankar Dayal Sharma.

The Jessica Lal murder case went up for trial in August 1999, with Manu charged with murder and his friends charged of related crimes such as harbouring criminal suspects.

Four of the witnesses who had initially said they had seen the murder happen, eventually turned hostile. Shayan Munshi, a model and friend who was serving drinks beside Jessical Lal, changed his story completely; as for earlier testimony recorded with the police, he said that the writing was in Hindi, a language he was not familiar with, and it should be repudiated. It is widely speculated that he may be under threat and that the judicial system is unable to provide witnesses with adequate security. Karan Rajput and Shivdas Yadav also had not seen anything, while Parikshit Sagar said he had left the place before the incident. In a conversation with the sister of Jessica, Karan Rajput is alleged to have played a tape-recording with some friends of the prosecuted who alleged to have "won over" several witnesses already.

Also, it appears that the cartridges used in the murder were altered. Although the gun was never recovered, these cartridges were for some reason sent for Forensic evaluation, where it turned out that they had been fired from different weapons. This led to a further weakening of the prosecution case.

Shayan Munshi's Testimony

Shayan Munshi is the son of a well known ophthalmologist in Kolkata, a graduate of the reputed Don Bosco School. An aspiring model and ostensibly a friend of Jessica Lal's, Shayan Munshi was present at the bar when the shooting occurred. In his initial statement he said unequivocally that Manu Sharma had fired the gun twice, once into the air, and once at Jessica. This testimony was recorded by the police in their First Information Report (FIR). However, during the trial he claimed that he did not know Hindi and that he was not aware of what he had signed. It later turned out that he had passed the secondary school exam with Hindi as a subject, and had also acted in the Hindi movie, Jhankar Beats.

At the trial, Shayan said that Manu Sharma had fired only once, and that also into the air. He described Manu's clothes carefully. Subsequently, he said that another bullet, fired by someone else, was the one to hit Jessica. About this man's dress, he was evasive, and saying only that he was wearing a "light-coloured" shirt. This led to the "two-gun theory" - with the forensic report said that the bullets were fired from different weapons. It is widely believed that the forensic reports were also doctored.

Following the court case, there was intense pressure on Shayan Munshi, who was already launched on a successful modeling career. He was involved in hosting a cooking show on TV and other activity.

On May 13, 2006, he was detained at Calcutta airport as he was about to board a flight for Bangkok, along with his wife Piya Roychaudhuri. Subsequently, he faced extensive police questioning, and may now be facing charges of perjury, based on evidence such as his Hindi examination marks and CDs of the Hindi films he has acted in.

Malini Ramani's Testimony

Another witness, Malini Ramani, daughter of the party host Bina Ramani, described the events as follows.

At 2 AM after the bar had closed, Manu Sharma walked in wearing a white T-shirt and jeans. The following is from her testimony in court:

Asked by the prosecutor what happened next, she said, "He asked for drinks. I told him that the bar was closed. He said that he would pay cash. I said it did not matter. Then he said that he would pay Rs 1000 for a drink. I told him that the bar was closed. Then he made a comment that "I could have a sip of you for Rs 1000," Malini Ramani told the crowded court.

Could you identify that man, the prosecutor asked.

"Yes, I can," she said and pointed to Manu Sharma. "The man who asked for drinks looked like him," she said.

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely," she said.

"What did you do then?"

"I was irritated by the comment and left the Tamarind Court and went towards the courtyard where I crossed my mother," she said.

"I had hardly gone out for a minute or two when Shayan ran towards me screaming Jessica had been shot. I passed out and fainted. It was only at 6 in the morning when I came to know from my mother that Jessica was dead. I was told this on phone," Ramani told the court.

The Judgment

After extensive hearings with nearly a hundred witnesses, the court passed its order on February 21, 2006. Throughout his 179-page case verdict, Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) S L Bhayana said that police sought to 'create' and 'introduce false evidence' against Sharma. The judgment repeatedly hints that the prosecution may have attempted, from the very beginning, to fabricate the evidence and present false witnesses, so as to render the case indefensible. In conclusion, he agrees with "the counsel for the accused that on April 30, 1999 the police had decided to frame the accused," read the judgment.

The judgment failed the police for deciding on the accused first and then collecting evidence against him, instead of letting the evidence lead them to the murderer. Since the prosecution had failed to establish the guilt beyond doubt, all nine accused were acquitted.

The Aftermath

In the immense uproar that followed, hundreds of thousands of people e-mailed and sms-ed their outrage on petitions forwarded by media channels and newspapers to the President and others seeking remedies for this kind of blatant miscarriage of justice. A poll conducted by the newspaper Hindustan Times showed that on a scale of 1 to 10, the public's faith in law enforcement in India was about 2.7.

Public pressure built up with newspapers splashing headlines such as "No one killed Jessica", and TV channels running SMS polls. Further, Bollywood hero Salman Khan was sent to jail for hunting a protected deer called the chinkara, the media was asking how one can be jailed for killing a deer but not Jessica Lal. Models, fashion designers, friends, relatives and others have held candle-light vigils at India Gate in New Delhi to protest the injustice of it all.

Surender Sharma, the police inspector responsible for the investigation, was transferred from the plum Hauz Khas position to a bureaucratic post. The police have also launched an inquiry against the possibly deliberate ineptness of their own earlier investigation.

Bowing to public opinion, the Delhi Police appealed against the acquittal at Delhi's High Court. (In India both convictions and acquittals can be appealed in higher courts). However, it is likely to drag on for years, as in a number of other cases.

On April 18, the a division bench comprising Justice Manmohan Sareen and Justice J M Malik released Manu Sharma on Rs 1 Lakh (USD 2000) bail. They also pulled up the Delhi Police and urged them to ensure minimal delays in the re-trial process.

Meanwhile, in the years that Manu Sharma has been free on bail, he has set up the thriving Blue Ice night spot and disco in Chandigarh.

MANU SHARMA

Priyadarshini Mattoo was a 23 year old law student when she was found reaped and murdered at her house in New Delhi on January 23,1996. The evidence pointed to Santosh Kumar Singh, the son of a highly placed Police Officer, but in December 1999, the judge acquitted him, pointing to serious inadequacies in the investigation.

The case is one of several in India that highlight the ineffectivenes of the criminal law system, especially when it comes to high profile perpetrators..

The Murder

Priyadarshini was a third-year law student at Delhi University, when she was found strangled in her uncle’s Vasant Kunj residence. She had been raped, injured 14 times and then strangled with a wire.

Santosh Kumar Singh, her senior in college, had been stalking and harassing her for several years, and appears to have been besotted with her, but Santosh came from an influential family - his father J.P. Singh, was then Inspector General of Police in the Indian state of Pondicherry- in the course of the trial he served as Joint Commissioner of Police in Delhi, where the crime had been committed. In view of these connections, the court handed over investigation of the case to the (CBI).

In 1995, Priyadarshini had complained that Santosh Singh was harassing and stalking her. She had been provided with a personal security officer at the time. In retaliation, Santosh had lodged a complaint with the university alleging that she was pursuing two degrees simultaneously. However, it turned out that Priyadarshini had passed M.Com in 1991 and the complaint was probably malicious.

On the morning of January 23, Santosh was seen knocking for entrance into Priyadarshini's uncle's house, where she was living, in the Vasant Kunj area of Delhi.

The evidence indicates that Santosh entered her house on the pretext of striking a compromise in their legal complaints. Subsequently he allegedly raped her, strangled her with an electric wire and then battered her face beyond recognition with a motorcycle helmet.

The Judgment

Delivering the judgement, the Additional Sessions Judge. J.P. Thareja said of Santosh, that though he knew that "he is the man who committed the crime," he was forced to acquit him, giving him the benefit of doubt.

In a 450 page judgement the judge came down heavily on the role of Delhi Police; “There has been particular inaction by Delhi Police”, he said, while commenting that the accused’s father may have used his official position to influence the agencies. “The influence of the father has been there in the matter and there was deliberate inaction”.

The helmet was found with a shattered safety glass - however the evidence was so poorly presented that the defence was able to discount it.

He further stated that the rule of law doesn’t seem to apply to the children of those who enforce it.

The Delhi police according to the judge, attempted to assist the accused during the investigation and trial. “Lalit Mohan, the Inspector was instrumental in creating false evidence and false defence for the accused. The witnesses of the police including a Sub-Inspector deposed falsely”.

The judgement held the CBI responsible for unfair investigation and failure to produce Virender Prasad, Mattoo’s household help, which resulted in the obstruction of justice. The police had claimed Prasad had gone missing and was not traceable, yet in the aftermath a journalist could easily find him in his Bihar village.

The judge added that the CBI fabricated the DNA test in the rape case as it was not obtained in accordance with the judicial procedure and could not therefore be admitted in evidence in view of Section 45 of the Indian Evidence Act.

The “state had failed to bring home the charge of rape against the accused”, and while indicing Santosh as "the man who committed the crime", the judge was constrained to acquit him, because of "the benefit of doubt".

High Court Appeal

Following a public outcry, the CBI then appealed the district court's verdict in Delhi High Court in April 2000. But there have been no presentation of evidence or hearings in the Delhi High Court well into early 2006.

Meanwhile, according to his lawyer, Santosh Singh got married in 2004, and as of February 2006, was leading a happy family life and practising law in Delhi.

Feb. 16, 2002: Nitish (in pic), an Institute of Management and Technology, Ghaziabad, student was murdered under mysterious circumstances.
Nitish was allegedly in love with his classmate, Bharati. Her brother Vikas is the prime accused. They are the children of D.P. Yadav, former MP, known as the strongman of western Uttar Pradesh. Case under trial.

DP Yadav has told a court in Delhi he will not reveal the whereabouts of his daughter despite meeting her recently.

Bharti Yadav is the prime witness in the Nitish Katara murder case.

"Yes, I know where Bharti is and no, I'm not going to tell you," said Yadav.

After years of insisting that he didn't know where his daughter was hiding, Yadav has confirmed that he met Bharti recently in England.

"He has made a mockery of the judiciary. If he did not want to give details why did he ask for two months time," said Neelam Katara, victim's mother.

The judge did not react to Yadav's new aggressive tactic. So can Yadav run into trouble now?

Legal experts point out that because Bharti is a witness and not an accused, she cannot be forced to appear in court.

Also, because Bharti is an adult, her father is not obliged to provide information on her behalf. However, because Yadav had earlier offered to find his daughter, his u-turn could earn him the wrath of the court.

Bharti's foreign location continues to be a mystery to the Home ministry. Four non-bailable warrants have been issued against her.

Passport suspended

Her passport has been suspended and yet, she can't be located by the government.

Now the prosecution has asked Interpol to find Bharti. She disappeared after Nitish Katara died.

Her testimony is essential to the case. Her brother and her cousin are accused of murdering Nitish katara to end his relationship with Bharti.

Ironically Vikas has been demanding bail on the grounds that the trial has gone through numerous delays.

"Their bail should be cancelled. How can they delay trial proceeding and also seek bail at the same time," said Kamini Jaiswal, an advocate.

The trial has not been proceeded for the last two years due to non appearance of Bharti. It is becoming clear some one has to take some stringent measures to get this trial back on track to ensure justice for Nitish Katara.