From: b sabha <bcsabha.kal...@gmail.com>
http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31821&articlexml=THE-MAN-WHO-NABBED-RAMAN-RAGHAV-26062016012014 Jun 26 2016 : Mirror (Mumbai) THE MAN WHO NABBED RAMAN RAGHAV Yogesh Naik and Kunal Guha Former cop Alex Fialho recounts how he captured Mumbai's most dreaded serial killer, who brutally slayed 42 Mumbaikars Anurag Kashyap's recent release may not be based on him, but it borrows the name of Mumbai's notori ous serial killer Raman Raghav. Dubbed `The Ripper', Raghav left a trail of horrific murders along the Central and Western suburbs that had an entire city on the verge of a nervous breakdown in the 1960s. When Mirror reached out to the man responsible for capturing the dreaded criminal in 1968, retired cop Alex Fialho's first response was, “Unfortunately, he died before me.“ The 86-year-old Fialho, then a PSI with the Mumbai Police, distinctly remembers the chaos wrecked by the man who admitted to have murdered 42 people over a period of six years. Raghav's killings terrorised Mumbaikars to such an extent that most streets in the Western suburbs were deserted after dark and night shows at cinema halls ran to empty screens.“Even the local trains were practically empty beyond Andheri till the end of the Western line, since most of the murders were committed in the Western suburbs in `6768,“ he says, adding that Raghav had been active for a couple of years in the Central suburbs of Mulund and Ghatkopar prior to this. Mumbai's police commissioner at the time, a soft spoken Jewish gentleman called Emmanuel Sumitra Modak, was the one to bear the brunt for these heinous crimes as he was regularly questioned by politicians and the press on his strategy to capture this monster on the loose. “He (Modak) would settle down for breakfast each morning in his chambers, and then receive a call from some police station or the other, with the same message, `Sir, murder',“ says Fialho, who joined the force in 1948, and was deputed to the Crime Branch for seven years before being transferred. When an eye witness reported that the suspected murderer was committing the brutal assaults in the garb of a sadhu complete with a beard, every sadhu or bearded man in the city was looked upon suspicion; some of the genuine sadhus even went underground to avoid the wrath of an enraged and terrified public. “A thousand cops were assigned on a daily basis to scope the Western suburbs every evening for suspicious characters and those who matched the description based on the details on record,“ he says, adding, “We would be out the entire night with only one restriction: no smoking, as it could alert him that he's being watched by someone who could haul him up. If you wanted to have a drink, you could, but no smoking.“ The Deputy Commissioner at the time, Sami Iyer (yesteryear pop diva Usha Uthup's father), Fialho remembers, was like a godfather to the force, as most could consult him. “He would say that before the ink dries on the pad, there's another murder. So, we need to get this guy early and stop him.“ Commissioner Modak's directive to his team was to reach out to all informants and turn over the unique features of the murders to find a clue that could help pin him. “But to get informants to divulge any information, you had to pay them. Sometimes, we had to pay from our own pocket because the government doesn't give you anything. I am sorry to say, but the position of the police was very bad then. We had to rely on raw information and follow up on every tipoff,“ says Fialho, who was a PSI for 20 years before being promoted. But the most fateful day in Fialho's life was in the September of 1968. Posted at the Dongri police station at the time, he was on his way to work one morning, at 8 am, when he saw a man who fitted Raghav's description approach him. Having done a detailed study and having carried his photograph in his pocket for years, Fialho couldn't be more cer tain. “But I didn't want to intercept him right away unless I was absolutely certain. Also, I wanted to see his reaction to me being in uniform. He crossed me and gave me a sarcastic look and walked past me.“ Noticing the suspect's calm demeanour Fialho's conviction was dampened. “I fished out his photograph from my pocket and in a flash I could tell his eyes were the same.“ The anxious PSI quickly turned around and followed his suspect, hoping to nab him before he crossed the Bhindi Bazaar junction to cross over to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Road, where he could easily blend into the crowd. Luckily, his suspect hadn't made it far. “I went up to him and tapped him on the back and said, `Mere saath aa jaao, thoda kaam hain'. He willingly obliged.“ Noticing his wet umbrella, even though it wasn't raining, Fialho was puzzled. His detained suspect explained that he was coming from Chincholi, Malad, where it was raining. “And that is when my doubts were confirmed; we had information that he was last seen 10 days ago by a woman who resided in Malad. Also, her description of his clothes -a blue shirt, blue khakhi shorts and brown canvas shoes -matched.“ Fialho took his detainee to the police quarters in Dongri for interrogation. On being asked to identify himself, he introduced himself as “Sindhi Dalvai“, a beggar from Malad who had committed petty thefts in neighbourhood shanties. Fialho knew that this was one of the seven-eight aliases Raghav had used in the past. “Then I gave him one stunning rap and told him, `Hum tere ko Raman Raghav ke naam se janta hain'.“ Then Fialho handed him the file photograph and asked him if he could identify the person. “He slipped on a pair of spectacles to carefully scan the photo and said, `Saab, mere jaisa hi dikhta hain, par main nahin hain.Yeh aur koi hain'.“ While Fialho was certain, since his suspect “didn't have the slightest fright in his face“, he summoned the fingerprint experts from the Police Head Office in Crawford Market for confirmation. Since Raghav had been previously arrested and convicted for petty crimes, his prints and other details were on record with the Modus Operandi Bureau of the Crime Branch. The prints were a clear match and the spectacles Raghav had momentarily slipped on, as was later established, belonged to a school principal that he had murdered a week ago. Fialho, who had nabbed the deadly killer unarmed, shares that he “wasn't one bit scared“ as he had thoroughly searched Raghav during his detention and hadn't found any weapon on him.“Raghav's weapon of choice for most of his murders was a crowbar which was custom-made by a mechanic in Kurla -shaped like a car cranking handle -the longer part would be in his hand and the shorter part he used to strike his victims. He always went for the head. At his interrogation, he explained, `Ek marenge toh kabhi uthega nahin'.“ Once Raghav's identity had been confirmed, the daunting task for Fialho was to hand him over to the Crime Branch without the news of his capture going public.“If people around knew that Raman Raghav had been caught, they would murder him right there. So, I discreetly called for my jeep without even telling the driver about the convict we were transporting and took him to the Dongri Police Station.“ At the station, Fialho asked his team to lock up the station to avoid intruders, called his night duty cops as reinforcements, and waited for the commissioner and his team to arrive. “A crowd had gathered outside as word had gotten out that we've nabbed the man. But within minutes, Modak arrived, along with PI Vinayakrao Vakatkar, and we handed him over.They took him to the Crime Branch and gave him a little bit of the fireworks. He admitted to all the crimes.“ While Raghav was convicted, he wasn't sentenced as the judge declared him mentally unsound.“There were three psychiatrists who examined him and certified that he was not fit to be convicted since he could not give us any plausible explanation for his horrific crimes.So it was decided that he should be kept under observation till such a time that he was able to tell us why he was committing these murders,“ says Fialho, before presenting his alternative theory, “But he was no lunatic. When he was previously arrested, he was convicted for petty theft that only he would commit in hutment areas -where there were no doorways -so he could walk in, do his business and walk out, which proves that his mind could reason.“ Raghav was initially confined to Arthur Road Jail and later moved to Yerwada Jail in Pune, where he died in 1995. SERIAL FACTS ABOUT RAMAN RAGHAV Raman Raghav had one brother and four sisters. He could only speak in Kannada and Hindi. He came to Mumbai in 1950 at the age of 20 and worked in various mills and later as a la bourer. He was to be married to Guruamma, his sister's daughter, but the alliance fell through as her father refused to perform the ceremony. A reward of Rs 1000 for anyone providing any clue about Raghav was announced as the prestige of the Mumbai Police was at stake. This reward was given to Sub Inspector Fialho after Raghav's capture. During the interrogation, Raghav confessed that his father taught him to steal and that he received “a telephone call from above“ to carry out the murders. He said that since courts often let off guilty persons, he, therefore, had orders from `above' to dispense justice. Raghav sold the goods he stole for as less as 2-4 annas. Since the English press was on strike at the time of Raghav's capture, news of the serial killer's arrest only appeared in Hindi and Marathi newspapers. 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