These things happen, says assailant.
By Rajiv Theodore
NEW DELHI: Crimes of passion are gruesome, some say. What happened on Wednesday at the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus would remain indelible in the minds of even Delhiites, who have long become immune to blood and gore in the capital city.
It happened in the morning in a class room teaching the Korean language. Twenty-three-year-old Aakash Kumar walked up to his female class mate Roshini Gupta, 22, aimed a loaded pistol and fired. The gun jammed, but the assailant was ready with an encore, this time pulling out an axe and hacking at the girl, and as the girl fell, he aimed a couple of stabs under the rib-cage with a knife. The drama does not end there. He then whips out a bottle of extremely potent insecticide –Sulphas- and gulps it down, simultaneously slashing his own neck with the knife.
As the two bodies collapsed in the classroom, aghast students, who were too shocked to react when the incident happened during a short break, rushed the victims to hospital. Aakash died within an hour with the chemical working on his system, while Roshini is still battling for life with gashes in her skull and deep wounds in the abdomen. A team of doctors at Safdarjung Hospital, who first stopped her bleeding and then performed a surgery before doing a number of scans to ascertain internal injuries to the skull has kept her under close observation.
A suicide note left by Aakash said, “We became friends since the day we took admission. I did everything for her but I feel she used me. I feel cheated. She used to make fun of me. There was a lot between us and we were close friends. Even our friends will vouch for it. However, ego issues had cropped up between us…she has hurt me by mocking me.”
Later, rewinding the events, students said the class began as usual at the School of Languages at 9.30 in the morning. Aakash was sitting at the back of the class. There was a short break in the class; many students strolled out, the lecturer too left after Aakash told him that his friend was looking for him. And a moment after that Roshini was attacked.
The Chairperson of the Centre for Spanish Studies, Aparajit Chattopadhyay, who recounted the incident, felt Aakash had no remorse, and he was still clear in his mind and talking after he had collapsed beside Roshini after drinking the poison. When Chattopadhyay asked the dying assailant why he did this, he responded in Hindi: ‘’ye to hota Hai’’ (These things happen).
Crime against women has been rising in Delhi and police estimates say that about one third of all murders that took place in Delhi are committed over failed love affairs. Crimes of passion as the police term these murders have seen women at the receiving end. Rapes and acid throwing have seen a dangerous spurt in the recent past.