The Hindu : Karnataka News : Helping elders in distress Law & order

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Saturday, Sep 29, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka

Helping elders in distress Law & order

Crimes against elders have come down, but many cases are yet to be solved, writes
K.V. Subramanya

The Bangalore police are all set to observe the World Elders Day on October 1 under the banner of Elders Helpline, a joint project of the city police and Nightingales Medical Trust.

The city police, who have come out with various projects in the past four years to help elders in distress, will bring out a directory of old age homes at a function to be held on that day.

While certain steps taken by them have brought down incidents of crime against elders, the police are yet to solve about 20 sensational murders of senior citizens reported in the past six years. Even after years, justice seems to be a far cry for many families who have lost their senior members.

The trend of killing senior citizens started towards the end of 2001. Four senior citizens — Ramakrishnan in Ulsoor, Manjula in Basavanagudi, Jayalakshamma in Chamarajpet and Siddaiah, a retired KAS officer, in MICO Layout — were murdered during October-November 2001.

In February 2002, the police arrested five members of the Dandupalya gang who allegedly committed these murders.

Despite the arrest of the Dandupalya gang, the killing of senior citizens continued and the police suspected that some absconding members of the gang could be behind some of these killings.

Though the police subsequently ruled out the Dandupalya gang’s involvement in the killings, they are yet to arrest the culprits.

The highest number of senior citizens (19) were murdered in 2004 and only eight of these cases have been solved.

While in some incidents, the police established that the criminals had killed the elderly people with the intention of looting their houses, they have not been able to ascertain the motive behind the killing in several other cases.

In a span of seven days, Lakshmamma (73), Lalitha (66) and Sudha Sampath (57) were murdered at their houses in September 2006 and were robbed of their gold jewellery.

While the police arrested two youths who allegedly killed Lakshmamma, they are yet to crack the other two murders.

Investigations have reached dead end in regard to the murders of H. Rajagopalachar (80), a retired teacher who was stabbed at his house in Basaveshwaranagar police station limits on February 22, 2002, and Keshava Prabhu (78), a retired employee of the Police Department who was strangled at his house in Nandini Layout on March 7, 2002.

Likewise, the police are yet to trace the killers of several elderly women, including Delucie Vaz, Sarai Bai and Jayadevamma who were stabbed at their houses in Cubbon Park, Ulsoor and K.R. Puram police station limits respectively, almost four years ago.

Apart from these incidents, the twin murders of Meena Rasquinha (75) and her maid Prema Mary (65) in Ashoknagar (May 2001), Shankaraiah (90) and his daughter-in-law Padmaja in Vijayanagar (August 2001) and Nirmala (65) and her daughter Rajeshwari in Madivala (August 2002) have also remained unsolved.

The police have closed the cases and filed ‘C’ reports in the courts in regard to these double murders.

Usually, they file the ‘C’ report and close the case when the culprits are not traced for long.

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