1,375 murders unsolved in Delhi

NEW DELHI - At least 1,375 murder cases here are yet to be solved by Delhi Police, and almost half of them are over five years old, a right to information (RTI) activist has said.

In their reply to RTI applicant Dev Ashish Bhattacharya, police said 644 of the 1,375 unsolved murder cases took place more than five years ago.

“The number of unsolved cases is definitely much higher than 1,375 (because) some police stations denied providing details stating that it’s a time-consuming procedure. Some gave confused details,” said Bhattacharya, who filed the RTI application to the home ministry in March.

“When media creates a hype on some high-profile cases, the cops start investigating them while thousands of other cases are left ignored,” he said.

As a result, families of thousands of victims are waiting for justice, he said.

One such unsolved case is that of 22-year-old BPO executive who was found strangled to death at her home in south Delhi’s Gautam Nagar neighbourhood Sep 9, 2008.

The victim’s father, who works with a bank and travels to the capital every month from Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, hopes that the Defence Colony police will arrest the culprit who murdered his daughter.

The unsolved cases also include the mysterious death of 41-year-old former soldier Janeshwar Sharma, who worked for industrialist Anil Nanda.

The victim was admitted to the Safdarjung Hospital June 9 with 80 percent burns and died June 15. The brother of the deceased is waiting to know who killed his brother.

Statistics provided to Bhattacharya show that the areas of Rohini, Alipur, Narela, Sultanpuri and Bawana have the highest number of unsolved cases.

Of the 336 unsolved murder cases in outer Delhi district, 246 cases are more than five years old.

In northeast district, there are more than 300 unsolved cases. In southeast district, there are 161 unsolved murder cases.