Killing For A Living

A month ago, the Nashik police zeroed in on a 50-year-old lady, Anjanabai, and her two daughters, Renuka and Deoli alias Devaki, for kidnapping nine-year-old Kranti.

It seemed like just another case till the trail led the police across most cities in Maharashtra to throw up a horrifying list of murder—at least a dozen children had been killed by the same trio.

Over the past several years, Anjanabai and her daughters had been picking up innocent victims, mostly children, to train them to pick pockets and rob—only to kill them at the slightest threat of being caught.

Two years ago, a month-old baby was killed and thrown in a public toilet in Nashik. Elsewhere, eight-month-old Santosh, one of the first victims, was picked up from Karad bus-stand five years ago by this mother-daughter gang. He was throttled near the Kolhapur bus-stand and thrown under a rickshaw.

One-year-old Bunty was picked up from Kalyan railway station six years ago. Two years later, he was killed and his body was dumped in the Khandala Ghat. Two-year-old Swati, four-year-old Meena Deshmukh and her elder brother are still untraced. Two-and-a-half-year-old Shraddha, who was last seen at the Kolhapur Deve temple over a year ago, was found dead on the Ahmedabad-Surat highway after being throttled in a taxi.

Sujata Hemant Diwan still cannot bear to look at the photographs of her two-year-old daughter, Anjali. "We took her to the Kalika mandir—one moment she was there and the next moment she was gone." The list is endless. "The victims were from all over Maharashtra, maybe some even from outside the state. All that has yet to be ascertained," says inspector M. Kale of the Panch-avati police station—Anjanabai was picked up from the locality on October 10. Operating mainly out of Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nashik and Kolhapur, the women chose fairs, festivals, temples and crowded places as their hunting grounds.

To gain respectability for their nefarious activities, the women rented homes in posh localities and owned a car—made available by well-stashed bank accounts and Rs 2 lakh worth of fixed deposits. Their main task was to whisk away children and teach them to pilfer. When the child squealed either out of hunger and illness to the neighbours—as in the case of five-year-old Pankaj Mahamulkar of Wadala, who was picked up from Dadar’s Vithal Mandir in July—he/she was eliminated.

The unsuspecting statistics would have kept on mounting if the sins of the past hadn’t come home to roost.

The trail leading to the three main accused in the shocking serial killings started with a family feud. Last August, Renuka and Deoli (Devaki) Gavit, ostensibly the daughters of Mohan Gavit, decided to visit their father 14 years after their mother Anjanabai had divorced him. They left behind a fake address and took away stepsister, Kranti, along with them. "I had just delivered Deepali and was in hospital. Had I been home, I would have never let her go," says Pratibha, Mohan Gavit’s second wife. It was the trio’s return trip for revenge that did them in.

They came back for Deoli, aged five, their other five-year-old step-sister. "They first went to her school and tried to convince the teacher that they would send her back in 10 minutes. But Deoli remembered their faces and refused to go with them. Later, a man came to our home and said my husband was lying unconscious in the market," says Pratibha. The idea was to distract her. But Pratibha ran to the market where her husband works as a coolie, spotted the accused, and informed the police.

The women and their accomplice, Kiran Shinde, went about their deadly business systematically till the fatal flaw. Now, in custody, their constant refrain is still remorseless: "Maroon takla (We killed them and then disposed of their bodies." 

So, was it premeditated or murder in madness? "She (Anjanabai) was touched in the head," says her ex-husband, Mohan Gavit. The police are not as charitable in their assessment. "What insanity? This is nothing but ruthless execution when faced with the likelihood of being discovered. The convenience to commit a crime was all that they were concerned with," says T.C. Wankhede, commissioner of police, Nashik. Anjanabai had been convicted for robbery and kidnapping in 1967. 

 The state CID is working to establish the identity and number of the children dead or missing. The law might cut short its course with the setting up of a special court for speedy dispensation of justice. What the grieving families hope the accused will get is instant punishment. As for Pratibha Gavit, she wants her baby back. "I kept my word and traced those women who took her away from me. Now, I want only Kranti." Pratibha just echoes the feelings of other mothers whose children disappeared as mysteriously.