Ice-Candy Murder

IT was Tamarind Court all over again, this time in Lucknow. If Manu Sharma killed Jessica Lall because she refused him a drink, 28-year-old Rakesh Kumar Mishra, son of a deputy SP in UP and working as a small-time contractor with the Lucknow Nagar Nigam, shot to death an innocent parlour attendant just because he couldn’t serve him the cassata ice cream he wanted.

Spirits, as in Manu’s case, were high even for Rakesh alias Guddu and his three cronies. They were attending a marriage party on the lawns of the Jehangirabad Palace, which adjoins the district magistrate’s residence in Hazratganj.

A video clip (now with the police) clearly shows Guddu dancing away on the lawns, whipping out his gun occasionally and firing in the air. It was perhaps for a break or on an impulse that he left for the ice cream parlour located on the same premises, some 50 yards away from the lawn.

Anand Singh, franchisee of the Baskin Robbins parlour (he also has similar franchises for Baskin Robbins in Delhi) says the youth came in around 11.30 pm. The parlour had already put up a closed sign outside its door as it usually does at 10.30 pm, though it does entertain families who might drop by after that hour. When they asked for a cassata ice-cream, attandant Raghuraj Maurya informed them it wasn’t available. At which, Rakesh’s friend and now co-accused, Sanjay, threatened him with his weapon. But while he didn’t pull the trigger, Rakesh stepped ahead, took out his pistol, placed it on the 20-year-old Raghuraj’s temple and shot him dead. "All this happened within seconds," says Anurag, another attendant who was eyewitness to the scene. "I ran after them for about 40 metres but in vain, for they had already whizzed away in their Tata Sumo. By the time I reached the parlour, Raghuraj had breathed his last," says this shattered friend of Raghuraj’s.

On being informed, the police promptly confiscated the video recording of the wedding party. "The cassette helped us a great deal," says UP senior SP, G.P. Sharma. "We could clearly make out that Rakesh had a .38 prohibited bore while his friend who at present has been identified as Sanjay had a .455 bore." In fact it was through this video cassette that a cousin of the victim identified the main accused.

According to a police source, Sadakant, the Lucknow DM; Vijay Bhushan, the SP (rural areas); Ajit Singh, a bjp mlc and Rajendra Tiwari, chairman of the Essential Commodities Corporation, were among the other vips present at the function when the crime took place. The DM, who was at the party for a few minutes, says in all probability the .38 bore Rakesh carried belonged to his father as it’s essentially a service weapon issued only to police and armed forces personnel. Says he: "Easy money and influential connections is what creates such irresponsible youth." And connections aren’t certainly what Rakesh is lacking. Apart from his father, one of his brothers, P.K. Mishra, is also in the police force—attached currently to the office of the UP director-general of police—and his elder brother S.K. Mishra is a prominent advocate.

In fact it was in his elder brother’s Sumo (UP 32P 5888) that Rakesh and his friends fled in. A half-filled bottle of Aristocrat whisky along with some plastic glasses were recovered from the vehicle, which illegally flaunted a red beacon light and a hooter. The police have lifted fingerprints from the bottle and have sent it for forensic verification.

Strangely, while the police have recovered the Sumo from dsp Mishra’s residence, the main accused and two others—Sanjay and Arvind Tiwari—are still missing. The fourth accused, Vimal Kumar Shukla, has been detained for questioning. Says A.K. Gupta, dig, Lucknow Range: "No special treatment will be meted out to the suspected criminals at any level just because of their connections".

It’s probably because of these connections that youth acquire these firearms in the first place and learn to misuse them. This isn’t the first time that Lucknow’s witnessed rowdy scenes in its restaurants. In early ’97, an inebriated group of four youngsters, including the son of a politician, opened fire after a minor altercation with the bartender at an elite disco of a five-star hotel. Again in March ’98, a group of youngsters opened fire and killed a waiter in a fast-food joint just because they were denied the money they had demanded. Random firing of shots is usual during weddings. Sometimes a stray bullet does hit someone. As it did the very next day after the Rakesh Mishra incident. A misdirected bullet, shot amidst the revelry of a wedding, killed an innocent youth. And still the lesson isn’t learnt.