This is Chandrakant Jha, a serial killer.
Fear spread among people in the years 2006 and 2007
when headless bodies were found one after the other near Tihar Jail.
The murderer was constantly threatening the police over phone calls.
This turned out to be Chandrakant's biggest mistake…
which eventually led to his arrest.
THE CASE OF DEAD BODIES LEFT OUTSIDE TIHAR JAIL
SUSPECTED SERIAL KILLER ARRESTED
This man was really sly and clever…
from the beginning.
As time passed, he began murdering the people who lied to him.
If he found out someone was lying to him,
he used to kill them.
He did not look nervous.
He did not look like somebody who was shaken
or somebody who was disturbed at all.
Perhaps, if I would have met him on the roadside,
I would have never known
that this man could be involved in something like that.
People have been murdered, the investigation is in process…
the culprit has been arrested, yet we do not have any proof.
Calling someone a murderer doesn't make him one.
Everything needs to be proved.
Chandrakant Jha was such an experienced killer that he knew that
the information provided to the police would not be admissible in court.
Now, let me tell you the actual story that he told me.
I was shocked during the interrogation.
When I asked him his name during the interrogation,
he said, "Are you Inspector Sunder Singh?"
I asked him how he knew that.
He said to me, "We'd spoken on the phone that day."
He said I had called him a wicked man, and he had challenged me to get to him.
He admitted that he lost the challenge by getting caught
and asked us to spare him.
He said if we beat him for information, he wouldn't say a word,
but if we spared him, he'd confess all details willingly.
I told him to speak up and that we wouldn't beat him up.
Now, let's begin with the story and all of the details revealed by him.
My name is Chandrakant Jha.
I am from a village named Ghosai
which is in Madhepura, Bihar.
My mother was a teacher and my father worked in the irrigation department.
This was not his birthplace.
He had moved here with his family.
My name is Devnarayan Paswan.
I've known Chandrakant for quite a few years now.
Since we were around six years old.
We were childhood friends.
I knew him since the time he moved here.
GHOSAI VILLAGE
His mother's name was Champadevi.
Champadevi had six sons.
The eldest son was Nityanand, then came Indranand,
Chandranand,
Kalanand, Sadanand, and the last one was Deepak Kumar.
My name is Akhilesh Sharma.
I was Nityanand's friend.
We studied in the same school.
We grew up together and so, we were really close.
All of Champadevi's children were tall,
brawny,
and well-built.
I found them selfish.
My parents never looked after me or my studies.
So I developed hatred towards them.
Later, I decided to move out of the village
and came to Delhi.
Out of 50% of the homes in Bihar,
there's at least one member in each family who's a migrant.
When someone migrates to a new place, be it from Bihar or anywhere else…
But right now, let's talk about Bihar.
They always migrate through someone's reference.
There's always someone they know at the place they have moved to.
Someone who offered them to migrate and work along with them.
And once they're here,
they stay with the people who have already migrated here from their village.
And that's why
you see that people from the same village or district
move into the same area.
Generally, they are the ones who get them employment.
When I moved here, I saw some known faces working in Azadpur Mandi, Delhi.
I began to work there as a laborer and a vegetable seller.
The judge called me up and appointed me as the amicus curiae for this case.
He asked me to meet Chandrakant and take a brief from him.
I was given the duty of defending him in this case.
He told me he has a family which includes his wife and five children.
How was it possible for him to murder someone
and dispose of their body parts without his family knowing?
He earned a livelihood as a laborer.
He took up different jobs.
First, he worked as a vegetable seller.
But the police posed problems for him.
He alleged that the police demanded money from him.
From the time he began selling vegetables,
the police harassed him and never let him sell vegetables peacefully.
If he didn't sell any vegetables that day,
he wouldn't be able to feed his family.
The police start to demand protection money
from a person who is settled and whose business is doing well.
The lowest category of people
is the Bihari migrants.
The people of Bihar were not equipped with local skills.
So, they used to work as rickshaw pullers,
work as laborers for loading and unloading goods,
because these jobs didn't require any expertise.
And hence, the attitude of the police towards them was worse.
Chandrakant claimed that
the police had demanded a new motorcycle from him for Diwali.
And that made him despise the police
and bear grudges against the system.
Chandrakant Jha used to work in Azadpur Mandi.
The people who worked there
formed an association of their own that was led by a man known as Pandit.
Chandrakant mentioned that their leader
used to take some money from their wages every month
by telling them that it was the share that
had to be given to the police, the MCD, and the contractor.
He even spent some of it on himself.
He felt that it was not right, so he refused to pay money to the leader.
This enraged Pandit
and he began fighting with Chandrakant.
In the ensuing fight, the knife that Chandrakant used for chopping vegetables
sliced Pandit's hand by mistake.
He filed a police complaint against Chandrakant
and the police filed a false case against him.
Chandrakant said that his wife was also arrested along with him
even though she had nothing to do with it.
That was the moment Chandrakant decided
to murder Pandit for revenge.
And he was the same victim named "Mangal" who was murdered in the year 1998.
I have five children.
No one in my family is educated.
I live with my family in Alipur.
Chandrakant owned a house in Alipur,
where his wife and his kids resided permanently.
On the other hand, he lived in Haiderpur, where he went on a murdering spree.
He told us about his pattern of killing
after we asked him a few questions as a part of our interrogation.
Chandrakant mentioned that initially, he used to befriend his victims,
treat them as family,
take them into confidence and get every detail from them.
The first murder that took place on October 20, 2006,
was that of Anil Mandal.
Anil used to spend my money.
One day, he took my daughter outdoors even though I asked him not to.
And that made me furious.
Chandrakant tied his hands and legs
and told him that he was going to discipline him and slapped him.
But it turned out to be much more than that.
The next morning, he placed the dead body on his vegetable cart
after packing it in a basket.
Later, he took the cart with the dead body on it
and went to Outer Ring Road in Haiderpur.
He got on a DTC bus on Outer Ring Road.
The buses from Outer Ring Road go up to Tilak Nagar.
When he reached the flyover, he got down from the bus
and got into an auto-rickshaw.
He confirmed if Constable Balbir was there before dropping off the dead body.
He then left the dead body at gate number three of Tihar Jail
where Balbir was posted on duty.
TIHAR JAIL, GATE NUMBER 3
He then went to a payphone in Nangal Raya and made a phone call.
He said that he punished people based on their actions.
And he did this for purging their sins.
And for that reason, Chandrakant claimed to have
severed their heads and thrown them into River Yamuna.
The second murder took place on 25th April 2007.
The victim was Upender.
This guy was dismissed from the service where he was working.
So, he had a problem. Now Chandrakant helps him.
He helps him by letting him stay with him, and sharing his food with him.
But he said his habits were not good.
He quarreled with Chandrakant over the phone.
I didn't like his character in general.
I took Upender with me to my room in Haiderpur.
He used to give his victims two chances.
He'd say to them, "Repent, or your file gets closed."
These were his exact words. It was a pattern.
And once he told someone their file was closed, they'd be dead.
I cut off the victim's hands, legs, and genitals with a big knife.
I dumped one of his legs outside Shalimar Bagh Mandir…
and the other leg in Swaroop Nagar.
I tossed one of his hands outside Tis Hazari Court…
and dumped his head in the River Yamuna.
And the victim's torso was disposed of
outside gate number three of Tihar Jail.
GATE NUMBER 3
Chandrakant then said that he was there
when the police needed help with unwrapping the victim's body.
He said that he would never fail to recognize my voice,
but I failed at recognizing his.
And I asked him why he was disposing of dead bodies outside Tihar Jail.
Chandrakant answered that there was a head constable named Balbir
who was posted on duty at Tihar Jail
at gate number three before 2003.
He said that Balbir tortured him when he was arrested back then.
He also cut down a portion of his meals
and stripped him naked in front of the other prisoners.
And hence, Chandrakant wanted him to suffer.
So, he used to drop off a body
exactly where Head Constable Balbir was posted on duty.
Chandrakant held a lot of grudges against the police.
He not only wanted to prove
that the police are liars
but also wanted to prove his prowess.
And that being a criminal, he did his work perfectly,
but the police can't do their job right
and can't work sincerely.
He wanted to prove he was better.
He wanted to show the police in a bad light
as they couldn't catch him even though he left dead bodies in broad daylight.
And the last one was a boy named Dalip.
He was staying with Chandrakant for 15-16 days.
But he says
his faith was completely shattered in those days because he started lying.
And all of this resulted in him
getting invited over to Chandrakant's place.
The third murder was of a man named Dalip,
and Chandrakant threw his torso outside Tihar Jail.
His hands and genitals were dumped near the gate of Tis Hazari Court.
His legs were dumped in Kishan Ganj Nala.
And lastly, he threw his head in Ghaziabad.
He says that he draped a small skirt of his own daughter
and wrapped a red cloth over it.
He kept it in a polythene bag and threw it
and let it flow towards the south of River Yamuna near ISBT.
He describes the way he handled the body parts,
and the way he killed them,
and then says he would repeat it in the future.
So, the experience of killing the past victims
must evoke these sensorimotor imageries in his mind,
which is really disturbing.
It gets converted into a rage and makes him say,
"You are responsible for me doing this."
"It is because of you I have done this."
Now, how does he address the bad feeling?
Because he also knows that you're a very competent authority.
If I tell you, "You have treated me like a second-grade citizen,"
you'll think, "You deserve it."
That's what you would tell me.
Though I know I deserve it, I still expect you to treat me with humility.
If you've not done so, my anger there is justified.
But I also can't be continuing without doing it,
and that's the reason he says he would do it in the future also.
I will send the next gift on time.
Your daddy, C.C.
During the interrogation process, I questioned him
about his sign, "C.C." in the letter.
YOUR DADDY, C.C.
He said he thought of himself as the moon,
and C.C. is short for "Chandra" which means moon.
The main purpose of him addressing to develop his own identity
to challenge us, to see that the law authorities would recognize
his competence and skill in doing what he was doing
in such an efficient manner,
had failed.
So that is the time he felt the need to prove it.
I have dropped off a dead body
right in front of gate number 3 of Tihar Jail.
All these small clues are an indirect
way of telling, "I failed to control myself."
Now, you're supposed to be the competent authority from the lot
who can help me in controlling myself.
So, please control me.
"Your daddy, C.C."
He also comes from a very deprived emotional environment,
deprived social environment,
and he has got very less cohesion
in his family relationship with his parents.
Chandrakant's mother was a teacher.
She too was mischievous but in a bad way.
She always had the urge to start fights.
Even if you're willing to help her,
you're not going to be spared.
Sooner or later, she would blame you too.
This was how she really was.
She was always up to something.
She would threaten people and get into conflicts.
She was always making plans.
The kids fended for themselves.
She hardly cared for them.
They were on their own,
and they managed to fill their stomachs one way or another.
Then Chandrakant moved…
to Delhi.
So that he could earn a living.
He started acting out there as well.
He even killed a criminal in Delhi.
That man was the gangster of that area.
It was his turf,
and he was its leader.
Once, Chandrakant had a fight with him.
There was a wood stove there
which was used by street vendors for cooking.
The goons began to kick it.
Chandrakant went up and asked why they were doing that.
The gangster had a criminal mind, so he couldn't think straight
and stabbed Chandrakant with a knife.
His entire chest was ripped open.
I asked him, "Partner, how did you survive?"
He said his innards were falling out.
"I picked them up with my bare hands
and used my scarf to stop the bleeding."
"I wrapped myself up and went to the doctor."
"The doctor treated the wound
and operated on me."
When he recovered, he decided to learn karate.
He wanted to specialize in karate, so he got trained in it.
He hunted the people down who attacked him and killed them.
And that was the reason he started torturing people and committing murders.
Before that incident, his only motive was to work and earn a living.
He used to stay in Delhi.
And there, he worked as a laborer.
The place he worked at was almost about four kilometers long.
And the entire place was lined with trucks carrying goods.
Chandrakant always stopped
near the vehicle that had the most expensive vegetables.
The rest of the people working there
used to unload the stock and move them to the warehouse.
Chandrakant, on the other hand,
used to steal the sacks loaded with vegetables.
He had someone helping him out.
He used to pass the stolen sacks to his associate.
Later, at night, he used to sell it at a high price.
His associate was responsible for selling the vegetables at night.
Once the vegetables were sold, Chandrakant used to take all the profit.
He'd always buy food for his associates,
but would never give them money.
So, obviously, we wanted to know his motive.
Because all of his victims
were either from his native place,
or they met him during the course of his journey and stay in Delhi,
or they met him in Tihar Jail,
or they met him during his judicial days when he was produced in court.
Some of them were really needy, and some were totally destitute
in the sense, that they didn't even have meals to eat.
So, he would invite them over, he would befriend them.
The unique part is that it never started with the motive that he will murder them.
It was essentially during his
acquaintance with them, association with them,
that he'd take offense to certain mannerisms of these victims.
And that, of course, conflagrates into some other small missteps
the victim makes which degenerates,
and where he has a very strong opinion against these people.
Where he starts feeling that the person is
just a dead load on the planet or something like that
when he reaches that stage.
So, it is very extreme.
The way he transported the bodies is quite remarkable.
Transporting bodies 15 kilometers away on Delhi roads is not an easy job.
Even though it was early morning hours--
There is no set pattern. As to any season, any particular month.
But it was risky as he could be checked.
Chandrakant threw the bodies outside Tihar Jail
because he wanted to make this case sensational.
A press conference was held for this case by the Joint Commissioner.
In the press conference, the police claimed
to have solved the cases of the dead bodies
found outside Tihar Jail.
The same killer had also committed a murder in 1998,
but he was acquitted of that charge.
It was a great morale booster for the police at the time
to have finally caught Chandrakant.
We had found three dead bodies,
out of which, the first victim was Anil Mandal,
who was murdered on 20th October 2006.
The second victim was Upender, whose body was found on 25th April 2007.
And the third victim was Dalip, whose body was found on 18th May 2007.
Chandrakant also confessed that
in 1998, he had murdered a man named Pandit alias Mangal.
In 2003, he had murdered a man named Shekhar.
And in the same year, he had murdered another man named Umesh.
And later, in 2005, he murdered a man named Guddu.
When we cross-checked the period, the date, the time,
and the place, we figured out that all of these were done by him.
We solved the case that took place in 2003.
But the other two cases,
Mukhmelpur Nala and Mangolpuri public toilet,
were untraced as per what we found in the records.
No investigation happened as no arrests had been made,
but he confessed about them later.
We'd merely arrested him, and he'd already started confessing everything.
But his words do not prove that he is the one behind the murders.
Proper proof is also needed.
Statements given before the police are not admissible
unless those statements lead to the discovery of a particular object.
Then it becomes admissible. Only that part does.
This is the law of evidence…
Of disclosures.
That something which is not
in the knowledge of the investigating officer
which comes to the knowledge of the investigating officer
only on the disclosure of…
This information was privy to the accused only.
Only he could have known.
Now, the thing was that the murders had taken place,
the investigation was in process, and the murderer had been arrested,
but we did not have any evidence against him.
Until there is no evidence, no action can be taken against the accused.
Chandrakant could change his statements at any time.
He could say that the police beat him into a confession.
The court will believe us
only if we present conclusive evidence.
Now, the thing is that
all the parts of the dead bodies were recovered, but their heads were missing.
He had mentioned that he threw the victims' heads in River Yamuna.
And we had to find them at any cost.
So, we made arrangements to find it.
We had to hire boats and divers to do the work.
We put in a lot of effort to find those heads.
Chandrakant took us to a place
from where he tossed the heads into the river.
So, then…
We tossed a stone into the river of the same dimension and weight
to predict how far the heads could have gone.
We started rowing from that particular point.
I can say one thing for sure.
During the course of the interrogation,
I realized that he was crafty.
He gave us every single detail of what he had done.
With that information, we had to find evidence,
but he also intended on misleading me with it.
We searched that entire area for two to three days continuously.
We scoured every inch of the place,
but we failed to find any evidence.
That place was unhygienic and surrounded by flies and mosquitoes.
The water level had dropped too.
Later, we saw two dogs swimming in the river.
They got out of the water on the other end.
That made me wonder…
What if the dogs have dragged the heads out of the water
and thrown them someplace else?
We began investigating the area around the river.
We started searching the bushes there.
Snakes were coming out of the bushes, but we kept going.
And all of a sudden, someone said that they had found something.
We all rushed to the spot where the evidence was found
and found all the things he had described in his statement.
I still had a gut feeling
that Chandrakant was misleading us and this was all part of his plan.
Chandrakant claimed that the head that was found
was of Dalip, whom he had murdered on May 18th.
I was still confused
because the skull was completely dried out.
The skull had no traces of flesh, blood, or hair.
It couldn't have been Dalip's skull
because he was freshly murdered on May 18th.
Had dogs scavenged on the skulls,
some amount of blood or flesh ought to have been there.
But that skull was dry as a bone.
When we were not able to find the heads of the other victims,
I came up with a suggestion.
I decided to put in a request.
All of the limbs
of the dead bodies as well as their skulls should be sent to the lab for DNA tests.
We decided to carry out a joint investigation on all three cases.
So, we sent the bodies for the DNA test to the forensic lab.
DNA matching sounds pretty cool, but…
If you find an unclaimed body,
you will know the DNA of that person.
You will store it in the future.
Let's assume you find a body.
But you don't have a national database of DNA
where you can just match it and find out the identity of the person.
But it was only when Chandrakant Jha was eventually caught
and when he was interrogated,
we could tally everything that he was telling.
There is one more technique
where we force the accused to prove what he's confessing.
We used that technique on Chandrakant.
After that,
Chandrakant started confessing to every single crime with proof.
But I knew that although he's confessing it in front of us,
he may not necessarily confess it in court.
As even in the past, he was acquitted for lack of evidence.
So, Chandrakant started leading us
and took our entire team to Haiderpur Colony.
The place he took us to had around 20-30 rooms.
And no one was living there at the moment.
Some laborers may have been staying there,
but at that time, they had gone to the factory to work.
RAM SITA
SITA RAM
When we went inside,
there was a weird smell coming out of that place.
The place was really messy and smelly.
And we found three knives there.
WEAPON (KNIFE)
When we went to pick up those knives,
we noticed some bloodstains there.
We shot the video and took photos of that area.
The forensic lab confiscated the knives and sealed them for further investigation.
Samples of blood from the floor were taken for testing.
The forensic lab had to scrape the floor
to retrieve the blood samples for further investigation.
Later, he said that he had kept a cell phone in a cupboard,
so we confiscated it and sealed the cell phone.
Then we noticed some names scribbled on a wall.
We asked him whose names they were.
He said that they were contact numbers of his acquaintances.
The cell phone that we found was his personal number
and that was the same cell phone that we were tracking all this time.
Now we had gathered
a lot of values of evidence to arrest him legally.
Before filing a First Information Report against him,
we have to look for the ingredients for the FIR.
We need to have…
We cannot just arrest anyone.
We need to have solid grounds for arresting a person.
And now, after the interrogation, we have grounds to arrest him
as we also had evidentiary values that the cell phone belonged to him.
Another proof was the three knives and the blood samples found at that place.
The things that we had found were similar to the things that he had told us about.
At the time, we had the grounds for his arrest.
-Come here. -Move back.
-We wanted to ask… -Mic!
-I want… -Tell us.
I want to know why the media publishes false statements?
-Answer our question. Tell us the truth! -You answer my question first!
-I've always been telling the truth. -What's the truth?
First, answer the question that I asked you!
If you think that we published false news then you might be the one lying!
Did you ask me before publishing it?
How would you know where I have been arrested from?
-What's the truth? -Only I know the truth.
-Why did you murder those four people? -What?
I may have murdered more. How would you know there were only four?
Tell us the details then.
I'll speak directly in court.