No One Killed Jessica by boseaaheli

Justice and Tolerance are two sides of the same coin

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Background

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Justice and Forgiveness

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Introduction

Everybody is somebody in Delhi ... nobody is a nobody The date of the incident was April 29, 1999, a Thursday night. Jessica Lal, a 34-yearold local actress and model, had been hired to work as a celebrity bartender at the Tamarind Court restaurant in Mehrauli. She was working along with fellow actor Shayan Munshi. About three hundred people had reportedly been at the restaurant that night, including Manu S h a r ma. The 2 4 - y e a rold son of Venod Sharma, who was a Congress Party minister at the time, arrived at Tamarind Court along with three friends, at around 11:15pm. The bar officially closed at midnight, but there were a few who attempted to buy a few more drinks after the fact. Sharma was the last. According to Ramani, the owner of the restaurant who overheard the conversation between Sharma and Lal, Sharma walked up to the ba

at around 2 a.m. to order another drink. After he was told that the bar was closed, he offered Jessica Lal 1,000 rupees. She, in return, told him “I wouldn’t give you a sip even if you gave me a thousand bucks.” When Lal refused Sharma’s advances so sharply he felt more in-

clined to draw his revolver. He fired two shots, one at the ceiling and the other at Jessica Lal. She was hit near her temple and collapsed. An ambulance was called and she was rushed to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead a few hours later. Sharma and his friends left the scene during the confusion immediately after the gun was fired. Manu Sharma was fingered as the culprit by numerous witnesses

Lal’s fellow bartender Shayan Munshi, Bini Ramani’s husband, and a handful of others. During police interrogation, Sharma initially confessed to the murder. However, the confession was later dismissed. The initial trial began in August of 1999. By the end of the hearings, four of the main witnesses who said they were. N e a r ly three hundred other party-goers claimed to have either not attended the event or to have left before the incident occurred. Shayan Munshi, the primary witness in the trial, claimed on the stand that the statement he signed was written in Hindi, a language he allegedly did not understand. Manu Sharma were acquitted in the lower courts on February 21, 2006.

Background

Jessica lal, a 34-year-old Delhi based local actress and model, fearless bold joly woman; who was passionate about her modelling career. Didn’t care about what world thought about her. She had an great enthusiasm in herself. A happy small family and dream to be big was all that was needed.She had been hired to work as a celebrity bartender at the Tamarind Court restaurant in Mehrauli, a southwest district of Delhi. She was working along with fellow actor Shayan Munshi.

Manu Sharma, the 24-year-old son of Venod Sharma, who was a Congress Party minister. He was spoiled to wasted. The bar officially closed at midnight, but there were a few who attempted to buy a few more drinks after the fact. Sharma was the last. Manu Sharma was fingered as the culprit by numerous witnesses, including Jessica Lal’s fellow bartender Shayan Munshi, Bini Ramani’s husband, and a handful of others. Lal refused Sharma’s advances so sharply he felt more inclined to draw his revolver.

Jessica’s is not the lone case. A host of high-profile cases have brought into sharp focus the courts’ inability to convict. Whether it is the murders of Nitish Katara and Priyadarshini Mattoo or poor people onside walks being mowed down by a Sanjiv Nanda or a Salman Khan, the high-profile accused literally seem to be getting away with murder, while in the Best Bakery case, key witness Zaheera Sheikh ended up becoming a pawn.

In the Jessica case, many senior police officers and advocates of the Supreme Court say that the trial court should have looked into the loads of circumstantial evidence, from the presence of Sharma at the site of the crime to his missing revolver and cell phone records.

The Elements Of Crime

The reign of fear The mud of guilt Emotional distance Role models in the media

The Reign of fear

FEAR “..I won’t give you a sip even if you give me a thousand bucks!”

During the summer of 1999, leading socialite Bina Ramani had been organizing Thursday Special nights, at her newly opened Tamarind Court restaurant, at Qutub Colonnade, a refurbished haveli overlooking the Qutub Minar in Mehrauli. On April 29, 1999, it was the seventh and last Thursday Special of the season; also being celebrated was the foreign visit of Bina Ramani’s Canadian husband Georges Mailhot, for a period of six months. Though the restaurant was yet to receiveit’s liquor license, drinks could be bought through discreetly marked QC coupons, and on that night, several models and friends were serving drinks at the ‘Once Upon A Time’ bar, including Jessica Lall, Bina Ramani’s daughter Malini Ramani, friends Shayan Munshi, and others. Previously, at 10 p.m., Manu Sharma alias Siddharth Vashisht, the 24-year-old son of

former Union minister Venod Sharma, having skipped his planned visit to Chan-digarh, drove up to the Friends Colony house of Amrinder Singh Gill (Tony), 32,a general manager of the Coca-Cola bottling unit in Delhi, where they were joined by 30-year-old Alok Khanna, a colleague of Tony, and Vikas Yadav, son of Rajya Sabha member, D.P. Yadav, a politician from Sambhal in Uttar Pradesh. The fourhad a few drinks and then drove down to Mehrauli in two separate cars. They reached Tamarind Court at 11.15 p.m. Manu Sharma had already attended one of the special Thursday nights; subsequently they ordered a few drinks and stayed on. Elsewhere in the town, event management specialist Shahana Mukherjee picked upramp model Jessica Lall from her house at 10 p.m.,

HIGH

LIGHTS and escorted her to a party,where she was to be the celebrity bartender that night, as was Shayan Munshi. “..I won’t give you a sip even if you give me a thousand bucks!” Jessica Lall to Manu Sharma, before she was shot at(overheard by Malini Ramani). As it was a busy night, the drinks were soon over, at about 2 a.m. Manu Sharma asked for a drink, which Jessica refused; he then tried to offer a thousand rupees, which she refused as well. The inebriated and enraged Manu Sharma shot at Jessica twiceat point blank range, the first bullet hitting the ceiling. The second one proved fatal, as it hit Jessica, who was now kneeling over, on the temple and she fell unconscious, immediately. Twenty minutes later, she was rushed to the Aashlok Hospital (in Safdurjung Enclave) in a car but she succumbed to her injuries thatsame night at the Apollo Hospital. The police brought the body to AIIMS forpost-mortem examination. Dr. R.K Sharma and Dr. Sudhir Gupta were the AIIMS Autopsy.

In the ensuing melee, as the 90-odd celebrity guests and Delhi’s glitterati scattered around, the culprits Alok Khanna, Amardeep Singh Gill (Tony), and Vikas Yadav slipped away from the scene together in Alok’s car, while Manu Sharma hid in a nearby village, one km away, for a while. The trio dropped Amit Jhingan at his Vasant Kunj residence, and reached Tony’s,Friends Colony, residence, where later Manu Sharma also joined them, after hitchhiking his way there on a two-wheeler. Next, Manu Sharma called Amit Jhingan, in whose white Maruti Gypsy Manu Sharma,Vikas Yadav, and Amit went over to the Mehrauli area beyond Qutub Colonnade, andasked Amit to dig out the weapon from a sand pile in a nearby village, where Manu had buried it. Thereafter, Jhingan dropped Manu at Tony’s residence and returned home. According to Police sources, Manu Sharma then called over another friend

Titu, who was visiting India from the USA for a wedding, to MP D.P. Yadav’s residence where Vikas Yadav had gone into hiding. There he was given the weapon for hiding. Titu’s whereabouts were never known and he ostensibly flew off to the USA after hiding the weapon, a .22bore pistol. Manu Sharma spent the night at Vikas Yadav’s Ghaziabad residence; later, their escape vehicle, a Tata Sierra, wasfound abandoned in NOIDA. While Manu Sharma and most of his family continued to abscond, as did Vinod Sharma and his family, Alok Khanna and Am-

ardeep Singh Gill (Tony) were arrested on May 4. On May 8, Bina Ramani, her husband, George Mailhot and her daughter, Malini, were arrested under the Excise Act for running an illegal bar after interrogation; also arrested was Manu Sharma’s accomplice, Amit Jhingan, from VasantKunj under Section 201 read with 120 (conspiring to destroy evidence), on the basis of disclosures made by Manu Sharma during interrogation. A Delhi court granted bail to the Ramanis, though their passports were seized, with Bina being a British national, her husband, a Canadian national, and Malini a US national; and Amit Jhingan was remanded to judicial custody till May 21.

The Mud of guilt

On May 19, Vikas Yadav walked into the Delhi police headquarters and surrendered, but only hours later he walked out, as he carried anticipatory bail papers from Imphal Court. The police chose not to arrest him that day, as according to Manipur High Court orders, he was granted two months of bail as soon as he was arrested. Through the press he said,Manu (the main accused) came to my house and wanted to spend the night there. I only allowed him to stay not knowing what had happened. Vikas Yadav was finally caught on May 30. Later, on July 9, Delhi High Court cancelled his bail, yet Vikas Yadav managed to elude police custody for a while, In September 1999, a sessions court granted Vikas Yadav interim bail with the direction that he had to s u r re n d e r before the trial court a week before beginning of the trial and seek fresh bail; subsequently on May 17, 2001, he was sent

On August 3, 1999, Delhi police filed the charge sheet in the court of Metropolitan Magistrate, wherein Manu Sharma was named the main accused and charged undersections 302 (murder), 201 (destruction of evidence), 120(b) (criminal conspiracy), and 212 (harbouring suspects) of the Indian Penal Code; and sections 27, 54and 59 of the Arms Act. While other accused, like Vikas Yadav, Coca-Cola Company officials Alok Khanna and Amardeep Singh Gill (destroying evidence of the caseand conspiracy); Shyam Sunder Sharma, Amit Jhingan, Yograj Singh, Harvinder Chopra, Vikas Gill, Raja Chopra, Ravinder Krishan Sudan and Dhanraj, were all charged variously under sections 120(b), 302, 201 and 212 of the IPC (for giving shelter to the accused

n which he admitsshooting Jessica Lall. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The idea at that time was to shoot in challenge. It wasembarrassing to hear that even if I paid a thousand bucks I would not get a sipof drink.â&#x20AC;? This audiotape was obtained and aired by the TV channel NDTV, but itdoes not constitute legal testimony. Subsequently, however, the confession was retracted, and a not guilty plea was entered in the trial. Manu Sharma is the son of one of the leading politicians in the state of Haryana, Venod Sharma, who belongs to the Cong. Venod Sharma was a minister in the Haryana government at the timethe trial judgement was announced. Subsequently, a sting operation by the newsmagazine Tehelka exposed how Venod Sharma paid bribes

Also, it appears that the cartridges used in the murder were altered. Although the gun was never recovered, these cartridges were for some reason sent for forensic evaluation, where it turned out that they had been fired from different weapons. This led to a further weakening of the prosecution case.[citation needed] this happened quiet a few weeks ago.Police is still searching for the enquiry witness. Shayan Munshi’s testimony: Shayan Munshi is the son of a well-known ophthalmologist in Kolkata, where he studied at the reputed Don Bosco School. An aspiring model and an acquaintance ofJessica’s, Munshi was serving behind the bar with Jessica when the shooting occurred. In his initial statement he said unequivocally that Manu Sharma had firedthe gun twice, once into the air, and once at Jessica. This testimony was recorded by the police in their First Information Report (FIR), which Shayan signed. However, during the trial he claimed that he did not know Hindi and that he was not aware of what he had signed. At the trial, Shayan said that Manu Sharma had fired only once, and that also into the air. He described Manu’s clothes carefully. Subsequently, he said that another bullet, fired by someone else, was the one to hit Jessica. About this man’s dress, he was evasive

, and saying only that he was wearing a “light coloured”shirt.This led to the “twogun theory” - where the forensic report said that the bullets were fired from different weapons. Following the acquittal, there was intense pressure on Shayan Munshi, who was already had a successful modeling career. He was involved in hosting a cooking show. efully. Subsequently, he said that another bullet, fired by someone else, was the one to hit Jessica. On May 13, 2006, he was detained at Calcutta airport as he was about to board aflight for Bangkok, along with his wife Peeya Rai Chowdhary. After extensive hearings with nearly a hundred witnesses, a Delhi trial court headed by Additional Sessions Judge S. L. Bhayana, acquitted 9 accused in JessicaLall Murder case, on February 21, 2006. Those acquitted were, Manu Sharma,VikasYadav, Manu’s uncle Shyam Sundar Sharma, Amardeep Singh Gill and Alok Khanna, both former executives of a multinational soft drinks company, cricketer Yuvraj Singh’s father Yograj Singh, Harvinder Chopra, Vikas Gill and Raja Chopra. In all,of the 12 accused, two, Ravinder Kishan Sudan and Dhanraj, were absconding while the trial court discharged Amit Jhingan at the time of framing of charges.

T L I GGU UI LT

GUILT

T IL U G G UILT

T L I U G GUILT GUILT

GUILT

Emotional Distance

The judgment faulted the police for deciding on the accused first and then collecting evidence against him, instead of letting the evidence lead them to the murderer. The ground for the acquittals according to the court was one.The police failed to recover the weapon which was used to fire at Jessica Lal as well as prove their theory that the two cartridges, emptied shells of which were recovered from the spot, were fired from one weapon, all three eyewitnesses listed by the policein its charge sheet, namely, Shiv Lal Yadav, an electrician at Tamarind Court, actor Shyan Munshi and Karan Rajput, a visitor at the restaurant that night, turning hostile during the trial, in addition to this the police also failed to establish a complete chain of the circumstances leading to the incident and trace themurder weapon which according to it, was used in the crime. Throughout his 179-page case verdict, Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) S L Bhayana said that police sought to ‘create’ and ‘introduce false evidence’ against Sharma. Though, the clauses were initially added for the protection of the defendants from giving confession under police torture, it was later exploited by many a guilty defendants as well, as in this case, where many a witnesses

The judgment repeatedly hints that the prosecution may have attempted, fromthe very beginning, to fabricate the evidence and present false witnesses, so as to render the case indefensible. In conclusion, he agrees with “the counsel for the accused that on April 30, 1999 the police had decided to frame the accused,” read the judgment. The judgment faulted the police for deciding on the accused first and then collecting evidence against him, instead of letting the evidence lead them to the murderer. Since the prosecution had failed to establish guilt beyond doubt, all nine accused were acquitted. After the verdict many experts pointed fingers at the flaws in the Indian Evidence Act of 1872, Confession by accused while in custody of police not to be proved against him No confession made by any person whilst he isin the custody of a po lice officer, unless it be made.

Role Models In The Media

News media have been largely liberalized in India since the economic reforms of 1992, which began the large free market expansion in reaction to severe economic crisis at the time. Since then, most television stations and newspaper publishers have been owned by private companies rather than government entities. This ownership is conducive to Indian journalism’s ability to operate outside of government influence, although that freedom is not entirely secure. There are instances of government involvement, such as the banning of Press TV, Iran’s state-run station, in the mainly Muslim province of

Kashmir after a controversial video was broadcasted depicting Christians ripping copies of the Qur’an (PressTV). It is prudent to note that there was little press coverage of the incident in India. There is, however, a danger of conducting a “trial by media” in order to appease a passionate public. To say that sensationalism is not uncommon in the free press would be an understatement. In this sense, at some point the judicial system must act in a fair way, which means that lawmakers and judges might have to ignore the

opinion of the masses in the process and focus on the evidence of a case. Broadcasting misresentations of events in order to gain more viewers or subscribers is a serious issue with news media. In the immense uproar hundreds of thousands of people e-mailed and SMS-ed their outrage on petitions forwarded by media channels and newspapers to the President and others seeking remedies for the alleged miscarriage of justice. Soon, NDTV a news channel more than 200,000 cellphone text messages urging retrial [4]. Apoll conducted by the newspaper Hindustan Times showed that on a scale of 1 to10, the public’s faith in law enforcement in India was about 2.7 Public pressurebuilt up with newspapers splashing headlines such as “No one killed Jessica”, and TV channels running SMS polls. Models, fashion designers, friends, relativesand others held candle-light vigils at India Gate in New Delhi to protest the verdict, followed by an even bigger candle light protest accompanied by a unique week long t-shirt campaign in Manu Sharma’s hometown, Chandigarh.

“we support re-investigation of Jessica Lal’s murder, let the truth come out” 21

justice justice justice justice justice justice 22

Justice And Forgiveness

‘ The ruling sparked a huge public outcry. Hundreds of text-messages and emails were sent to major news channels and newspapers protesting the “injustice”, and many claimed that Sharma’s innocence was only upheld because of his father’s powerful position in government and believed that the court had purposefully overlooked evidence. A large crowd holding a silent candle-light vigil at the India Gate in honor of a fallen airman, whose wrongful death was covered up by the government and the military.

This seemingly struck a chord within the public at the time. Two major copy-cat vigils occurred, one among models, actors, and other celebrities in honor of Jessica, and the other was organized by a group called the “Middle Finger”, now known as the Human Rights Protection Group. Other protests, now under the title “Justice for Jessica”, against the perceived miscarriage of justice were organized in the area by the group. With the growing pressure from the public, the higher courts of New Delhi admitted a police appeal on the case on March 26, 2006, only a month after the acquittal. It was not a retrial, but an appeal based on evidence already marshaled by the lower courts mainly due to a reexamination of the bullet casings found at the scene. In the meantime, a New Delhi-based magazine known as Tehelka embarked on an extensive.

The decision was largely based on the Judge’s reasoning that the police had failed to find the weapon that was used to kill Jessica Lal and to gather enough evidence to support the claim that the two cartridges recovered from the crime scene were fired from the same weapon. By December 15 of that year, the courts held Manu Sharma guilty based on existing evidence, based on two spent cartridges recovered from Sharma's car. The ballistic analysis for one of the bullets matched the bullet recovered from Lal's skull. The undercover operation would reveal to its subscribers on September 9, 2006 a detailed interview—which would later be broadcasted by Star News and NDTV—with Shayan Munshi. In the interview he was led to believe that the interviewers were producers for a film, and that they wished to audition him. In the filmed interview, it is recorded that he clearly speaks, reads, and understands Hindi. Another interview orchestrated by the magazine revealed that large bribes were given to witnesses by Sharma’s father Venod to keep them quiet about the case.

A murder. A media campaign. A fight for justice. A conviction. And now forgiveness. Almost 20 years after Jessica Lall was shot point-blank, her sister Sabrina Lall said in April 2018 that she has “no objection” to the release of Siddartha Vashishta, better known as Manu Sharma – son of then Haryana Congress leader Venod Sharma. Manu was awarded life imprisonment in Tihar jail for shooting dead 34-year-old Jessica Lall on 30 May 1999, after she refused to serve him liquor. In the letter to the welfare officer Of the Central Jail No. 2 in march 2018, Sabrina Lal wrote that owing to Sharma’s good conduct in jail, she’s willing to forgive him and move on with his life.

The fact that this case got the kind of highlight it did is perhaps one of the reason why it ended with a conviction. Worse crimes have happened with far more compelling evidences but because there hasn’t been a media attention, justice hasn’t been served.

Conclusion

The Jessica Lal case, several key aspects. The first is its media and the way that social, news, and film media influenced the outcome of the case. Jessica Lal would only be a young woman who died brutally and tragically if it was not for the publicity her case underwent. Instead of falling into obscurity, this minor actress and model became a symbol for the nation, something to represent the often suppressed frustrations of the public. Technology and modern media helped the case by making the symbol—Jessica Lal and the trial— readily available to the people. Digitalized civic action is the current trend in India, as it is in the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Modern media has a profound hold on social action and political development. The effects themselves are as instantaneous and progressive as the technology that promotes it. While few in the United States may feel the direct impact of the results of the Jessica Lal case, social media as a tool for civic action is not a foreign concept, nor is the push for continual improvements in gender equality. A significant part of the compilation of this paper has been gathering the resources necessary to identify details of the different topics discussed. Many of those resources have been online news articles and videos. It is important to note that as a student in the United States studying present-day issues in India, I would have had a much more difficult time gaining access to those articles, videos, and files if it were not for the modern information sharing system that is the Internet. I have repeatedly uncovered the impact that modern media and information platforms have had and continue to have on the reality of social action and how an individual may view the world. The Jessica Lal movement stands as an example, a case study for certain global trends in our present age. The fascinating part of studying such a phenomenon is

finding those trends, and when the worlds of academic thought and global application begin to merge, marveling in how multifaceted they become. The second aspect reveals the long struggle against gender violence and the continually evolving views of women and their place in Indian society. The Convention of the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women regards women, like children, to be of a special case in any society because of a historical trend of being “second-class” citizens in almost every civilization to date (Cook 10). The film No One Killed Jessica, by making the two main characters female— Sabrina Lal, Jessica’s sister, and Meera, the fictional journalist representing the Tehelka magazine (No One Killed Jessica)—creates an emphasis on the paradoxical position of women in Indian society. They are given more rights by law, but the same system refuses to protect those rights so they must work just that much harder to gain in practice what they have on paper. Definitions of the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have been endlessly arranged and rearranged in the vast spectrum of human perceptions to suit the needs and desires of individuals and groups. However tempting it is to believe there is one solid answer to apply to every problem that exists in the world (or at least every problem that exists in India), the purpose of this paper is not to try to find that answer. The purpose of this paper is to help make connections, and to reveal particular tendencies—both explicit and implicit—of specific cultural, societal, legal, and political systems. Economics, culture, art, religion, history, geography, politics, and language all are likely indicators when researching the reaction to the event and the event itself. In this case, looking at the aspects of media, rule of law, and civic action in India through the lens of human.

The fact that this case got the kind of highlight it did is perhaps one of the reason why it ended with a conviction. Worse crimes have happened with far more compelling evidences but because there hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been a media attention, justice hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been served.

Never leave a light of hope for Justice.

-Tanvi Shah