Revisiting India’s most gruesome homicides

What started as a conversation between few fellow journalists at a bustling cafe in Khan Market, Delhi made journalist and author, Shantanu Guha Ray revisit some of the most gruesome murders that took place in the country. From Ponty Chadha and his brother’s shootings to Sheena Bora’s case which kept the country on the edge of its seats to the mysterious death of Sunanda Pushkar’s, a case that still awaits to be solved — Shantanu revisits the families of and pens down their tales, while also bringing out information that may have been overlooked while these deaths took over Indian television screens.

His latest book titled, Found Dead reopens nine killings that shook the nation. “As a journalist for over thirty years, I have covered some of the most of the bizarre murders that happened in the country and I took up the opportunity to write about them. In most of the murders that I covered through these years, a bulk of the cases drew media’s attention because they were rich. And the others, if the people were poor, the murders were gruesome. Indian media constantly thrives on crime, cinema, comedy and cricket,” Shantanu explains on how only certain homicides catch the media’s eyes.

He says he deliberately dropped two cases — Nithari and Aarushi. “In Aarushi case, I think the entire evidence got lost and the media immediately split into two groups: the ones that believed the parents and the others that didn’t. I’ve never seen media getting divided over a case,” he elaborates.

Shantanu says he made inquiries to find out if Indrani Mukerjea and Peter Mukerjea, who were charged with the murder of their daughter Sheena Bora, would speak but the lawyers refused. “I managed to visit almost all the families. I even happened to meet Mehr Tarar (a Pakistani columnist who was in the news after Sunanda Pushkar’s death, over reports of her affair with politician, Shashi Tharoor) and asked her if she was in love with Shashi Tharoor. She said, ‘Even if I was in love, am I the cause of the death?’” he states and adds, “Today, we see Shashi Tharoor going everywhere to speak about government, politics, but who killed Sunanda? Sadly, many of the cases like this get lost in the political quagmire. This is what my book is all about,” Shantanu concludes.