Breaking news coming in from Delhi.
A body of a 30-year-old has been found near Safdarjung Enclave Deer Park.
An unidentified dead body has turned up in Connaught Place.
This incident took place at Ambedkar Nagar in Delhi,
where the police are trying to find the head of a mutilated body.
On October 20, 2006,
we received an anonymous phone call at around 6:30 a.m.
I have left a dead body right next to gate number three.
On average, around 500 murders take place in Delhi every year.
I haven't come across such a case in the last 23 years.
The most surprising thing was that he was challenging the entire system.
Maybe overseas there are some parallels,
but in the Indian context, I haven't come across anybody
who has done such murders
and has gotten away with it for such a long time.
It was the most high-profile killing case.
If this can happen in the capital city of the country,
then which other city could be considered safe?
I challenge you to crack the murder case and find me.
I am Sunder Singh Yadav.
I was an Assistant Commissioner of Police with the Delhi Police
in Mangolpuri Jurisdiction last and I'm retired now.
In 2006, I worked in the South district.
Later, I was transferred to the West District.
I was posted at Hari Nagar Police Station.
On October 20, 2006,
we received a phone call early in the morning
at around 6:30.
I was at the police station at that time.
Inspector Balkishan was the duty officer then.
Hey, idiot!
Two of your officers are on duty.
But they don't do anything.
I have left a dead body right next to gate number three of Tihar Jail.
Inspector Balkishan called the head constable who was on duty.
He asked him to check if there really was a dead body out there.
The head constable went out, and he saw a basket lying there.
The basket was packed very well.
When he took a peek inside it, he found a dead body.
When all of us arrived at the scene,
we saw a wicker basket with extra twigs on top.
It looked like a regular fruit basket.
There was a dead body inside the basket.
The victim may have been around 28 to 30 years old
and had a dark complexion.
And he had been decapitated.
His arms and legs were intact.
The body was first covered with newspapers so that it wouldn't bleed out.
Then it was covered in rags
and then with a plastic sheet.
It didn't let a single drop of blood flow out.
The constable also found a letter inside the basket,
and he opened it.
The letter was full of appalling abuses for the police.
Everyone in the Delhi Police are motherfuckers!
All of you are fucking cunts!
All this time, I was punished for crimes I didn't commit.
But this time, I have actually committed a murder.
You guys will never be able to find me.
I'm not some petty gangster who is afraid of a case being filed against me.
I challenge you, solve this murder and catch me if you can.
I'll be waiting for you.
Your daddy, C.C.
Back then, they thought it was an ordinary case.
All the newspapers covered the story in a similar way.
But a few days later, there was a piece in the newspaper
stating that a letter had been found on the dead body.
And the contents of the letter
had also been printed in the article with his quote,
"Catch me if you can."
This changed the momentum of the case.
Everyone who is very dangerous or is considered dangerous
for society, for the nation, from all parts of the country,
is called in and dumped in Tihar.
The impression was that Tihar is
a place that is the most secure zone in the country.
Dead bodies were still being found outside and there was nothing that could be done.
My name is Hargobinder Singh Dhaliwal.
I was the Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police for West District.
Whichever jurisdiction the bodies were found in,
the FIRs are registered in the nearest police station.
Tihar Jail comes under Hari Nagar Police Station.
It was morning hours when this body was discovered.
And the body was covered in only one undergarment.
Essentially, it was nude.
I anticipated that the culprit was going to call again.
You could call it a coincidence or intuition,
I found out from Inspector Balkishan that the murderer had called him.
What are you guys up to? Did you investigate the body?
Inspector Balkishan told him, "Brother, we are on it."
Oh, so I'm your brother now, huh?
You guys are useless.
Give me your Station House Officer's phone number.
So Inspector Balkishan gave him the phone number of SHO Hoshiyar Singh.
The SHO received a phone call.
He asked the man why he was doing it and what his motive was.
-And he said… -Do you see the head constable Balbir?
He tortured me when I was behind bars.
After this, SHO Singh passed the phone to me.
After asking him a few questions, I lost my patience.
I said, "Aren't you an incorrigible bastard?"
Who do you think you are to challenge me?
I challenge you!
You will keep receiving more gifts.
He was quite thorough, with what he was doing.
It is not that easy to throw bodies outside Tihar Jail and on the main road.
The main challenge was to, of course, identify him. Number one.
And also, to catch him,
so that he can't destroy any evidence that we would be likely to find.
The person who leaked the letter
was someone who wanted everyone to know that this case was a big deal.
If they hadn't leaked it, there would've been no case.
Every year,
approximately, 40-50 cases of unidentified dead bodies
go unsolved by the Delhi Police.
Only because the bodies cannot be identified.
When a dead body is found,
they preserve it for three days,
that is for 72 hours.
If no one identifies the person in 72 hours,
the police perform the last rites.
After that, no one comes back to ask what happened to the body.
Similarly, even these cases would go unnoticed.
Investigations follow certain strategies.
For example, number one,
we had to trace the locations the calls were made from.
When we asked the control room,
we received two updates.
The first call was made from Nangal Raya.
And the second call was made from Tilak Nagar.
One of the phone booths was run
by a guy named Ram Babu Chaurasiya.
We asked him, "How many people have made calls from here since this morning?"
He said, "Only one, sir."
He described him as dark-complexioned, and about 28 to 30 years old.
And that he had an average height. He wasn't too tall or too short.
We asked him if he could recognize him if we showed him a picture,
and he said, "Yes, I can."
Later, we called in a sketch artist to get the likeness.
In the letter, he also mentioned that
he had been falsely arrested.
I want the Delhi police to listen carefully.
All this time, I was punished for crimes I didn't commit.
That was his allegation against the police.
That he was implicated in a couple of cases of a serious nature.
He didn't deny his criminal record.
He didn't say that he was an innocent man and he was this…
But he said that maybe he was…
hauled up or arrested for a couple of crimes
for which maybe he wasn't even responsible.
In the letter, he phrased it,
"Maine murder kiye hu."
This kind of dialect is used by people from Bihar.
He also wrote, "I'm not some 'gangwar'…"
The word "gangwar" is used mostly by police and criminals.
Further, it also mentioned a dead body found in 2003.
He wrote, "I had left you a dead body back in 2003 too but you did nothing about it."
So I went back to look for murders that happened in 2003,
in December, and in Hari Nagar, Delhi, as he had mentioned.
It shocked us all when we found out it was true.
In 2003, a dead body was found
at gate number one, which is a little ahead of gate number three.
A dead body was found at gate number one.
They investigated it,
but no one found anything.
We couldn't identify the killer or even the victim.
And that's the reason this case was declared "untraced" as we call it.
That body too was headless. We couldn't figure out who killed him.
But when the October 2006 murder happened,
and the note was found on the dead body outside Tihar Jail,
we realized there was someone out there committing these serial killings.
We made the connection that one man was responsible for the headless bodies.
HEADLESS BODY FOUND NEAR TIHAR JAIL
Why would somebody throw a body in front of Tihar Jail?
Clearly, it was to send a message,
that this was someone who had done a stint at…
Or had undergone imprisonment at Tihar Jail.
It was also obvious that
this person had a deep grudge against the criminal justice system,
be it the police administration or the jail administration.
Secondly, after the call, I looked into Balbir's background.
Do you see the head constable Balbir?
He tortured me when I was behind bars.
So I looked into Balbir's posting back then.
I found out he was stationed at Jail Number Three.
The thing about Jail Number Three is that
it houses only convicted felons.
So we had three identifiers. One was his age.
We had a definite range to work with.
We narrowed it down to a list of people who were about 25 to 35 years old,
had a dark skin tone, and were from Bihar.
We ended up with a list of about 35 people.
The police make efforts at first,
but after a few days, they start considering it a waste of time.
They have far more important cases with solid leads and clues.
They lean towards them
rather than investigate cases where the bodies cannot be unidentified.
On April 25th, I got a call from SHO Hoshiyar Singh
about another body,
and I was asked to get there immediately.
GATE NUMBER THREE
When I got there, what shocked me was that
the dead body was kept exactly at the same place,
down to the centimeter,
at the exact spot as the last one.
The dead body was wrapped so tight that we couldn't open it.
We all took turns to try,
but the knots were too tight.
GATE NUMBER THREE
In the midst of all this, a boy stepped up and said,
"Let me try to open it."
We were already under a lot of pressure.
A new body made things worse.
This body was mutilated in the same way.
The first one's head was cut off,
and this body had both its hands, legs,
as well as its private part cut off.
But this time, there was no letter with this dead body.
But the method of wrapping the dead body was the same.
Soon enough, we got a call saying
that the missing parts
had been found near Tis Hazari Court.
From the way the body was dumped,
it was pretty certain that
the person didn't stick around after disposing of the body.
The crime wasn't committed at the spot where the body was found.
It was pretty clear that it was done at some other place
and the body had just been dumped there.
Of course, it was pretty obvious that it was done for sensationalizing.
When this incident took place,
there were only a handful of CCTV cameras in Delhi.
We had nothing to help us identify this person.
The police were, as they say, taking a shot in the dark.
They had no leads, no clues.
They couldn't identify the dead bodies
because they were headless and had no other identifiers.
Generally, a police investigation begins with information about the victim.
Once the victim is identified,
we consider the case 90% solved.
But in this case, we didn't know the victim's identity.
We didn't know the accused.
We didn't know the place of occurrence.
All these things made the case tougher to solve.
See, it is not like we are hunting for a serial killer.
You know, it's never like that.
You could be hunting or looking for people who are, say committing property offenses.
But there is nobody… I don't think there is a task force
that actually hunts for a serial killer.
Because unless this crime is manifested,
you are not onto it.
You need a pattern, you need a sequence, you need a body,
you need a crime to have happened before you catch onto it.
When the pressure piled on,
police started coordinating
with all the nearby police stations.
Forces from all stations in the range besides just West District
were put on the case.
Because this was a challenge posed to all of Delhi Police.
The team was constituted under my supervision.
We had members of the Special Staff from West District,
some very fine officers,
and also from other sub-divisions of West District.
So, a lot of resources were pulled in for this.
We worked extensively on the case and with a lot of urgency
because we realized that the more time it takes,
the more murders the accused would commit.
It was like you're running against time,
trying to save another innocent person
who may fall victim to his series of crimes.
And then, of course, our area of…
detection and area of finding out further clues
extended to many different parts of Delhi.
Essentially, I'd say, North West District, West District of Delhi Police, North East.
While the investigation was ongoing,
another body turned up on May 18, 2007.
I haven't come across such a case in the last 23 years.
We have seen one-off murders committed by a single person.
Maybe overseas there are some parallels,
but in the Indian context,
I haven't come across anybody who has done such murders
and had done it in such a patterned way.
It was the same pattern,
and another note was found this time.
The first letter had only one page.
This one had three pages.
This letter also had abusive words…
and a detailed description.
He had included information about the first body
as well as the second body he had left.
A body was found on October 20, 2006.
You people failed to examine the body properly.
The name "Amit" was written on the body's arm.
But you didn't even care to publish his name in the newspaper.
He was following the newspaper details closely
and also reading the fine print.
Let the media know that C.C. is deranged and dangerous,
and offer a reward for information
so that this game gets a little more interesting.
He knew about the reward offered.
He knew about
the way police share news with the media,
and the way crimes are reported in the media.
Make sure the reward is worthy of my work.
If you ridicule me, I'll put you to shame!
He wanted his crime to be reported, to be…
You know…
He wanted to be seen through his crime.
Make sure you give this letter to the media,
and I'll send you another gift soon.
Yours truly, C.C.
But this is a person who knows the system a little bit,
who challenges the system,
who gets a thrill and takes pride in what he's doing
and the way he's doing it.
So, it was almost like…
he was getting a thrill out of this at this stage.
When the letters were compared,
we noticed the penmanship and the language were the same.
Even the same words were used.
The handwriting was similar too.
Both letters were signed by C.C., which was another clue.
YOURS TRULY, C.C.
My first impression was both were written by the same person.
That's one thing.
And not because of the handwriting,
but because of the content of the letter.
I am Dr. Shivarathna Lalit Vaya,
Director, School of Criminology, Crime Science and Behavioral Sciences.
When the scientific content analysis of these two letters was done,
the kind of language used,
the kind of slang used,
and the kind of sentences framed were checked.
Based on the quality and the content, both were written by the same person.
Number two.
It clearly says that…
The person claims to have committed certain murders in the past,
and that he has plans to commit some more in the future,
for which he is trying to say that the present system is responsible.
If you motherfuckers really think you are your father’s sons,
I dare you to come get me.
The kind of language he uses in his messages is an indirect way of expressing
displaced anger towards his parental figures towards the authorities over here.
See, if he had any kind of regard, respect, and affection
for his mother figure, he wouldn't have used such language.
This is more of a projection of his deprival
from the expected parental figure from whom a child expects protection.
He did not have that, and the anger is projected on the authorities over here.
See, this is somebody
who is feeling victimized by the system.
And, somebody who is…
not only feeling victimized but wants to do something to undo it.
He's not part of the system in the sense that he can go about it legally.
But he's trying to do whatever's in his power.
And to get away with it for so long…
I mean, it's quite a unique thing.
In the letter, he also says that…
if he doesn't kill about seven to eight people in a year, he cannot live in peace.
I, C.C., can proudly admit the fact that
I commit at least seven to eight murders in a year.
Or I start losing my shit.
This talks about the psychological urge to kill.
In a span of about five months, you already have three to four murders.
Although different body parts were dumped in different parts of Delhi,
one sizable portion of the body was always placed outside Tihar Jail.
Despite that, if they cannot catch someone, cannot nab the person,
cannot even spot the person,
and it remains a blind case,
it speaks volumes about the investigation and competence of the Delhi Police.
See, the bodies were not found in quick succession.
There was a fair gap
between one incident and the other.
And it was not that the body was intact.
It sounds very oxymoronic that
there was a pattern and there wasn't one at the same time.
After the discovery on May 18th,
we had another meeting.
In the discussion, we were asked about the resources we needed.
I asked for Dilip Kaushik and a few other officers.
I told them we did not have enough vehicles. All we had were clues.
They asked us how many days we needed.
I asked them for about three more days,
and that if we couldn't make headway,
they could take over the case.
They agreed
and asked the crime team and special cell to be on standby.
For the next three days, only Sunder Singh Yadav's team would be on it.
I was asked to pick the officers on my team.
I asked for Narender, Virender Tyagi,
Dilip Kaushik, Rohtash, and two cars.
We were under a lot of pressure. The media followed us all the time.
In a way, we were failing,
but we still had the clues.
In 1998,
there was a murder in the North West District.
Like in the recent murders,
the victim's head, hands, legs, and private parts were severed.
Narender investigated further
and started reaching out to informants for clues.
Police are lost without us informants.
They don't know what's happening outside the station or their homes.
Informants know who did what, when, and where.
These officers from the special cell are often in plain clothes.
Their spies know everything about who is doing what,
if someone has been up to something shady.
Pictures from crime scenes or CCTV footage
are shared with spies in that area.
They can identify the person by their shoes, height, and color of their clothes…
They can locate the person with details like that.
Nowadays, advanced technology has become commonplace.
Technical surveillance has become common.
But at that time, the informer network was the backbone of police investigations.
Informers were tasked to gather information about the killer.
A spy or informer is out all day.
He hobnobs with every kind of person, good and bad.
That's their network.
A spy can find out who committed the murder and where,
and where the victim is buried.
On the basis of that information, the police continue their investigation.
Inspector Narender was working alone.
One of his spies tipped him off that there was a doctor in Azadpur Mandi
who was often visited by a man fitting their description.
At this point, Narender Pehlwan was leading the investigation.
We were following his orders.
At around 2:00 p.m., Dilip Kaushik, Narender Pehlwan, and I set out.
We kept the rest of the team on standby.
We met with the doctor in the clinic.
We began our inquiry.
Since I was in plain clothes,
I showed him my ID to show him that I was Sunder Singh Yadav
and I was a special staff at the West District.
We told him we were there regarding a murder investigation.
As soon as I finished, the doctor got a phone call.
Soon after the doctor hung up, Narender Pehlwan slapped him.
Quite observantly,
he asked him if it was the murderer's call.
The doctor said, "Yes."
LEAVE YOUR FOOTWEAR OUTSIDE NO ADMISSION WITHOUT PERMISSION
We took the doctor to our office in Tagore Garden.
The doctor confirmed that this man had five daughters
who were all born at his clinic, and that his name was Chandrakant Jha.
He told us that Chandrakant Jha and his brother-in-law knew each other
and once had an argument.
Chandrakant Jha talked his brother-in-law into coming along,
and the doctor found out about it later.
The doctor knew that Chandrakant had a criminal record
and had committed murders as well.
So he rushed to Chandrakant's quarters,
looking for his brother-in-law.
He saw Chandrakant Jha was holding a knife to his brother-in-law's throat.
If he hadn't arrived in time, Chandrakant would've killed him.
He said, "Chandrakant was going to meet me at 4:00 p.m. today,
but you guys dragged me here so I won't be able to meet him."
So we asked him to call Chandrakant back.
He called him and asked him why he didn't show up.
Chandrakant said he would meet him at 4:00 p.m. the next day.
On May 19th, we all got there at 4:00 p.m.
All of us donned various disguises.
I put on a Lungi and Kurta and disguised myself as a banana vendor.
There were junior officers at the frontline,
but officers who were tall, like me, who could be easily recognized as police,
stayed back but had to be around to guide the team.
We always plan an ambush according to the situation.
It was inching past four.
It was summertime and the heat was getting to us.
And the construction of the Delhi Metro
was underway everywhere.
There was dust everywhere. The heat and storms were wearing us down.
We waited, but the man didn't show up.
Our next strategy from here was to go through the doctor's call detail record.
We saw he got a call from Chandrakant Jha
and one from Chandrakant's wife.
The doctor had answered only the first one.
The second came through around the time Narendra Pehlwan hit the doctor.
The carrier of both numbers was Tata.
Back then, we couldn't get the accurate location
of mobile numbers carried by Tata and Reliance.
Whenever a call was made by these numbers,
we would get a location range from Najafgarh to Narela and Jahangirpuri.
It was never a precise location.
It was difficult to work with a range that spanned so wide.
So we decided to filter the list of phone numbers.
There was one cellphone number he got a lot of calls from.
And quite regularly.
Sometimes, these calls lasted two to three minutes.
And the address registered for the number was in Alipur.
On May 20, we headed to Alipur.
We split about four to five alleys among ourselves to investigate.
The main strategy here was
to interrogate people who lived there or were passing by.
To secretly ask them about people who lived there.
I had instructed everyone not to tell them that it was a murder investigation.
I gave up and told them all that we had nothing.
That I thought the mission was a failure.
It was the 20th of May, the third day, and we still hadn't caught him.
When an investigation is underway, you're always thinking,
"What do we do next?"
I called up the duty officer.
I realized the doctor's brother-in-law had been in our custody for almost three days.
He could tell us something.
The head constable on duty got him to speak and then called me immediately.
He said that apparently, Chandrakant Jha owned a cart
fitted with a motor engine.
I immediately called up Narender Pehlwan.
I said, "Look out for a cart fitted with a motor engine."
Narender suddenly exclaimed,
"There's a cart like that right in front of me."
When he asked me where to go from there,
I told him to get into the house the cart was in front of.