Passion crime and the Internet

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The young and restless Kashmir has arrived big time on the web. All these years it has sliced quite a bit of the network pie. Action-filled videos are posted every day on Youtube and chats on social networking fibre are common. Also popular are Twitter and podcasts.

Cyber crime isn't. It was never until Maisuma murder unfolded. A 20-year-old spurned lover allegedly bludgeoned his friend after the latter chatted with his Delhi-based girl friend on an Internet leisure space. The girl had deleted Imran, 20, from the friends' list and included Asrar instead.

Jilted, Imran called Asrar to his house on Srinagar outskirts, hit him fatally with an iron rod. With a friend's help, he then dumped the body near a graveyard in Rainawari, three km from his Maisuma. The killing provoked wave of violent protests in the city and a defensive police watched helplessly as mobs burnt and vandalised public and private property.

For the police, whose credibility has been badly hit after the Shopian double rape-murder incident, Maisuma was a blinder initially. Not many clues and a hostile crowd that won't listen. As police was groping in dark, Asrar's family suggested they talk to Imran for clues on a condition that he should not be harassed.

During mild questioning, Imran told police he had seen Asrar on his motorbike with a pillion rider who was wearing a baseball cap. He told police he did not know him but can recognize him.

Based on this information, police sifted through 5,000 application forms at Islamia college where Asrar studied. On the right corner of one such form, a student sported a baseball cap. Police picked his up, traced his call details but found him innocent. On Imran's suggestions, the same exercise was repeated, this time 2,000 forms were scanned at a coaching centre where he took lessons. Two suspects sporting ``baseball caps'' were called, their call detail scanned but no evidence was found. Both were released.

Every angle of investigation was hitting a dead end until on Tuesday when it struck one police officer that Imran was diverting investigators and he could even be a suspect. Imran's mobile call details were sought which revealed that during one particular interval of time, he was at a location where the crime was committed.

Taking a chance, the officer started interrogating Imran. Imran told the officer that it was actually he and Asrar who were on the bike that day and when they taking a ride, four gun-totting men in a car, abducted Asrar and threatened him to run away. He told the officer that fearing for his life, he kept mum and parked the bike at his friend's residence. To make him believe this, Imran even told him that he be put on narco-test.

In the meantime, police scanned his friends' list on the networking site. Call details of the friends were got, even details were obtained from MTNL in Delhi. During the scan, name of one girl Ishita cropped up. Her call details revealed she was in touch with Asrar.

Imran too was put under sustained interrogation. Having misled police on three occasions by manufacturing stories, he finally confessed to the crime and revealed that his friend Asim had helped him to "fix"' Asrar. Police recovered the bike from his friend Asim's home. The two together then led police to the site of the crime where an iron rod, bloodstains, Asrar's slippers and tape with which his hands had been tied up were seized. The blind case was solved. It took police more than 20 investigators to crack the case. During the investigations, they not had to face angry mobs but managed to get the alleged culprits.