TV journalist Soumya Vishwanathan’s murder: How the accused were nailed | Delhi News

NEW DELHI: Ravi Kapoor’s police uniform never had a single wrinkle. His wireless set was positioned impeccably on his left shoulder and provided him with regular updates. However, behind meticulous get-up, Kapoor was not even a cop. He was a brutal killer who had murdered TV journalist Soumya Vishwanathan, IT executive Jigisha Ghosh and a cab driver, all of them on one south Delhi stretch. A police uniform was not the only attire Kapoor donned. In a black robe, he also posed as a judge and in a white coat, as a doctor.

Sometimes, Kapoor doubled up as a police informant and even drove some official cop vehicles. So, when he and his associates committed the three murders, he wasn’t even on the police radar. Kapoor and his gang spent many evenings at the offices of some south Delhi policemen, giving them false leads and cleverly extracting probe updates from them. Aware of how the investigations were progressing, they stayed ahead of the cops at every step.
However, then DCP (South), HGS Dhaliwal, was determined to catch the murderers and formed 24 teams comprising, among others, then ACP Bhisham Singh, inspectors Atul Kumar Verma, Jai Prakash and OP Thakur. While Soumya’s murder in September 2008 remained a mystery for about six months, the killing of Jigisha on the same stretch in March 2009 led to the unravelling of the mystery behind the deaths on Nelson Mandela Marg.
The cops cracked the cases within a week of Jigisha’s murder, piecing together the common links in both the killings. They also solved a third murder, of a cabbie, who was killed by the same set of killers. The breakthrough came when the investigators were tipped off about a suspect with a tattoo on his hand being involved in a recent murder of a transporter.
Before these two vital clues emerged, the probe had focused on the transactions carried out using Jigisha’s stolen ATM card. The killers had used it to buy shoes, TV and a watch in Saket and Sarojini Nagar. Police came across a blurred CCTV footage that showed the three suspects buying a watch. A head constable named Dara Singh identified the man with the tattoo as Kapoor.
On Wednesday, Dhaliwal, now a special commissioner of police, told Toi that “it had been a long journey”. He recalled how he and his team had to tread carefully in dealing with the elderly parents who had lost their young children. “They had gone into depression, so we made efforts to give them some closure. The void in their lives can never be filled, but we did our best. Their blessings mean a lot,” said Dhaliwal. The case also remains fresh for Verma, an ACP now, and the other cops, who collectively sigh with relief after the men’s conviction on Wednesday.