: It was a tattoo which provided the police their first major breakthrough in cracking the Jigisha Ghosh murder case. The accused-Amit Shukla, Baljeet Malik and Ravi Kapoor- were convicted on Thursday.
“Around 5 a.m. on March 18, 2009, i.e. soon after abducting Jigisha, the three took her to a State Bank of Patiala ATM kiosk in Mahipalpur to withdraw money using her ATM card. It was there that their faces were captured but the real challenge was identifying them. A tattoo on Baljeet’s arm proved instrumental, as it runs into almost eight inches,” recalled Inspector Atul Kumar, who was a part of the investigating team.
Local intelligence was activated in the nearby areas of Mahipalpur and the investigators learnt that a Masoodpur resident, Baljeet Malik, had such a tattoo on his arm. A tip-off came on March 23 that Malik and his “two friends” would take the Nelson Mandela Marg.
Accused nabbed
A trap was laid and the same Santro car in which they had abducted Jigisha was flagged down. Baljeet’s “friends” turned out to be his co-accused in the case, said Mr. Kumar.
In fact, the ATM kiosk was also carefully chosen by Baljeet, a former police informer.
“They knew that SBI ATM kiosks did not have cameras, and spotting that this one did not have a guard either, they decided to walk in. However, what they failed to notice was that this particular kiosk belonged to an associate bank and not the main SBI. Therefore, this one had a camera,” said Mr. Kumar.
A guard from an ATM kiosk right opposite the one the accused had gone to had seen the killers and Jigisha. He later told the police that the woman had looked worried. He, however, did not inform the police assuming that the four were friends who had fought among themselves and that had left the woman upset.
After withdrawing Rs.20,000 from the ATM in Mahipalpur, they proceeded towards Faridabad. On the way they smothered Jigisha and dumped her at Surajkund. The convicts then went on to buy articles at PVR Saket and Sarojini Nagar using Jigisha’s ATM card.
