Crime capital: Delhi crimes that leave deep scar on populace's mind in 2022
Though crime is reported every hour in Delhi, yet, some leave a deep scar in the minds of the populace.
Not even a day of the new year 2022 had passed, and a shameful act of humiliating the women of the minority community came to the fore.
Ismat Ira, a young Delhi-based journalist lodged a complaint with the Delhi Police stating that she was being targeted by some unidentified group of people on a mobile application named ‘Bulli Bai’.
“It was the first day of the new year when I came across that image.....I was shocked and aghast to find out that a portal had my doctored picture in an improper, unacceptable, and clearly lewd context,” Ismat remembered while speaking to this newspaper.
Notably, it was not the first time, the act of targeting a woman of a minority community came just six months after the derogatory Sulli Deals mobile application had surfaced where photos of Muslim women were displayed without their consent.
Both cases were probed by the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of the Delhi Police’s Special Cell. The prime accused in the cases, identified as Neeraj Bishnoi, who created the Bulli Bai app, and Aumkareshwar Thakur, creator of the Sulli Deals app, were arrested by the Delhi Police on January 6 and January 8, respectively.
On March 4, the cops filed a detailed chargesheet. However later in the same month, both Thakur and Bishnoi were granted bail on humanitarian grounds. As per the latest update, Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena, this month, granted sanction to prosecute Aumkareshwar Thakur under section 196 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which pertains to prosecution for offences against the State and for criminal conspiracy to commit such offence.
In its big scoop from November, this newspaper had brought out details of a tell-all letter written by the conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar of his connection with jailed AAP minister Satyendar Jain. This development left the AAP in a tizzy while the Tihar Jail chief was sacked.
Clubhouse hate chat
The January month was yet to complete and another ‘’obnoxious’’ audio chat on the topic ‘Muslim girls are more beautiful than Hindu girls’ went viral on social media. In the said conversation on the Clubhouse platform, the participants were allegedly heard making obscene, vulgar and derogatory remarks targeting Muslim women and girls.
Taking suo-motu cognisance over the issue on January 18, Delhi Commission for Women issued a notice to the Delhi Police Cyber Cell demanding immediate registration of an FIR and punitive action against the alleged persons. The police immediately swung into action and within a few days six people, which even included two women and a minor boy, were detained and questioned by the police.
The Mumbai Police Cyber Cell also arrested three men from Haryana in the same case after a complaint was lodged in Mumbai by a woman. Further, the Mumbai and Delhi police also found that the creators of Bulli Bai and Sulli Deals applications had been virtually connected with the perpetrators of the Clubhouse hate chat.
A procession & a Communal clash
Just a month later, on April 16 evening, Delhi once again, after a gap of two years, witnessed violent communal clashes in the Jahangirpuri area of the city in which eight police personnel and a civilian sustained injuries. The clashes broke out during a Hanuman Jayanti procession. But what were the circumstances that led to the violence? The facts were -- there was a religious procession, it was passing through a mosque neighbourhood and then there was stone pelting, firing, and clashes.
It was not just one procession that passed through the same locality, rather, it was the third one that ultimately led to bloodshed. Special CP (Law and Order) Dependra Pathak had at that time said the first two processions were taken out at 11 am and 1 pm on April 16, and their organisers took permission from the police on March 25 and March 31, respectively.
However, Delhi Police denied the request for the third Shobha Yatra procession as its organisers had made the request just one day before at night. But even though there was no permission, the organisers went ahead and took out the procession. The police personnel kept a close watch on them. Fortunately, there were no casualties during the clashes.
The clashes broke out in the evening and within hours, the Delhi Police contained the situation with the help of paramilitary forces. By 8 p.m., the situation was under control, yet tense. Months later, the Crime Branch charge-sheeted 37 people in connection with the riots.
Livelihoods Bulldozed
Not even four days had passed since the several communal clashes, the civic agency in Delhi, taking a hardline approach decided to remove illegal encroachments from the riot-hit Jahangirpuri area. On April 20, bulldozers reached the same road in front of the mosque, which was the epicentre of the riots, and first demolished a tobacconist’s shop and then a juice-cum-tobbacco vendor next to it. And then a double-storey scrap dealer’s shop was also razed to the ground.
The exercise was heavily criticised by the Opposition parties. To stop the demolition drive, Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, representing the Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind went to the Top Court. After hearing the matter in detail, the Supreme Court ordered status quo and the drive was halted. But soon after a fortnight, the civic agency continued with its demolition exercise in other parts of the city. In several instances, it even faced the ire of the encroachers, especially in sensitive areas.
The Tihar fiasco
The high-security prison -- Tihar Jail -- known even before independence to keep the criminals at bay, received much humiliation this year for allegedly extending benefits to the prisoners in one or the other way.
On November 1, this newspaper broke the mega-exclusive story of jailed conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar writing a letter to Delhi LG VK Saxena in which he levelled serious allegations of extortion against Aam Aadmi Party Minister Satyender Jain and the then director general (Prisons) Sandeep Goel. Just three days later on November 4, Goel was removed as the chief of Tihar Prison and asked to report back to the Police Headquarters in Delhi with immediate effect.
In his first letter, Chandrashekhar alleged that he made payments not only to Jain but also to the Aam Aadmi Party to the tune of Rs 50 crore as he was promised an important position in the party in south India. The allegations put the AAP in the vortex of a political storm with rivals BJP and Congress training their guns at its party chief Arvind Kejriwal. Just a week back, Goel was placed under suspension by the Union Home Ministry.
The Ministry, however, cited no specific reason in the suspension order. The Tihar Prison also came back in news after videos of Delhi minister Satyendra Jain getting a body massage inside his jail cell went viral on social media. The purported CCTV footage dated September 13 showed the minister lying on his bed and reading some papers while a man, who was later identified as an inmate convicted in the POCSO case, was seen massaging his foot.
The videos surfaced on social media, 10 days after the Enforcement Directorate accused Jain of getting special treatment inside the prison.
The Mehrauli monstrosity
In one of the rarest gut-churning incidents, a 27-year-old Mumbai resident Shraddha Walkar was allegedly strangled, her body sliced into more than two dozen pieces and then dumped at different locations of a forest area in south Delhi and Gurugram by her live-in partner, Aaftab Amin Poonawala.
The case immediately caught the eye of national media and became the talk of the town due to two reasons – one was the interfaith relation between the accused and the victim and second the barbarity with which Aaftab had committed the crime. The case that shook the country to its core came to light on November 14 but the victim woman’s father – Vikas Walkar’s search for her missing daughter had already begun in October. One of Shraddha’s friends had alerted her father Vikas about Shraddha not responding to her messages and calls for the past some months.
It was Vikas Walkar, who first approached the Mumbai Police on October 6 and later came to know that she was residing in Delhi with her live-in partner Aaftab. The Mumbai Police lodged the first missing complaint on October 10 after it found that Shraddha had been inactive on her all social media accounts. Aftab too was called to Mumbai and questioned by the police on October 26.
However, he did not reveal anything then. Searching Shraddha, the Mumbai Police then reached Mehrauli police station in Delhi on November 9 and told them about Shraddha who was possibly residing at Chattarpur Pahadi in south Delhi. The next day, on November 10, the Delhi Police registered an FIR and began searching for her. Aaftab was traced and detained and when put to sustained interrogation, he revealed all the horrific details of the barbaric crime that he had committed six months back on May 18.
It took Aaftab several months, starting from May 18 when he killed his partner, to gradually dispose of all body parts in the forests of south Delhi and Gurugram in Haryana.
From a new low in Islamophobia set by Bulli Bai and Sulli Deals cases to the nauseating details of the Mehrauli murder, Ujwal Jalali brings a recap of violent events that the capital bore witness to. Communal clashes and the ensuing ‘bulldozer justice’ also made 2022 a dark year