Rape, murder: How Mumbai Police failed 23-year-old victim

Many Mumbaikars may have missed the news today of the discovery of the partially burnt body of Esther Anuya, a 23-year old TCS software engineer who went missing early on 5 January from Mumbai’s Lokmanya Tilak railway terminus. But as more details emerge, it appears that the Mumbai Police has been very sloppy in handling this case. The body was found last evening just off a service road next to the arterial Eastern Express Highway, the area which was the last known location where her cellphone signal was tracked, not by the Mumbai Police but by her family, some volunteers and a team from the Vijaywada Police from Andhra Pradesh. [caption id=“attachment_1345291” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Protest against rape. Agencies.[/caption] The Mumbai Police claimed to have searched the area since the family complained about Esther going missing on 5 January and the last known cellphone area information was available to the cops fairly soon. But clearly the Mumbai Police search was perfunctory and half-hearted since the body was found right next to the arterial road nearly 11 days after she went missing and with bottles with petrol next to the body. The delay in finding the body and decomposition could also have destroyed vital clues that could help nail the perpetrators of this dastardly crime and may actually help the rapist-killers go scot free, since media reports have quoted police sources of saying that she might have been raped before being killed. There are also allegations of lack of co-ordination / co-operation by the Mumbai police with the team from the Vijaywada Police. The case also brings in to focus the abysmal lack of facilities and proper security at the important Lokmanya Tilak (LTT) railway terminus in Kurla East. Though Esther’s co-passengers have said that she got off at LTT, there was no proper CCTV coverage on the platform that could give investigators a clue as to who might have conned her into accompanying them since it was dark and around 5 am when her train reached the station and she being unfamiliar with Mumbai was worried about getting to her hostel in Andheri West. LTT is well-known as a terminus with extremely poor connectivity, touts, lack of proper cabs and autorickshaws and as a place where commuters are often fleeced by cabs and autorickshaw drivers. The railway terminus is also a place where scouts from the flesh trade may look for unsuspecting victims. Incidentally, while one of Esther’s cellphones was tracked to the area where her body was discovered in a gruesome partially burnt state 11 days after she went missing, another cellphone was tracked to Kamathipura, Mumbai’s infamous red light district and a hub for trafficking of women.