Sunday, April 6, 2008

The First Human Bomb



The Untold Story of the Rajiv Gandhi Assassination

Author: Prof. P.Chandra Sekharan

"The entire book makes for an interesting read written as it is in a story telling format. The book tempts us to complete the reading in one sitting, its easy flow of language like that of an Oxford Don" -Dr Justice A R Lakshmanan-

Excerpts from the book

Seldom have I gone to bed before midnight and it was the same on May 21, 1991. I was listening to the BBC and casually perusing through an article in a weekly, the usual nightcap that would gradually induce sleep. Suddenly I heard BBC flashing the news that Rajiv Gandhi, the former prime minister of India was killed in a bomb blast during his election campaign at Sriperumpudur. I became alert. Sriperumpudur is a sleepy little town situated at a distance of 40 kilometres from Madras on the National Highway connecting Madras and Bangalore. I was dazed and could not believe what I had heard. How could such an incident happen in Tamil Nadu, a fairly peace loving state?

Within a shocked minute, the telephone rang. It was Watson on the line. Watson Theodore Gnanasekharan was my colleague in the Forensic Sciences Department with which I was associated for more than three decades. He was one of my trusted lieutenants who used to assist me in all the cases I directly handled. His name drew inevitable comparisons of the two of us to Sherlock Holmes and his Watson from many of our professional colleagues, which flattered me, and hopefully, Watson too....

......The two-part design of the jacket and the crimping connector used in the circuit made for one certainly, that is, one part of the jacket carried the power circuit and the other part carried the explosive charge, detonators and detonator circuit. If that was the case, the power circuit with switches should have, of necessity, been in the front, for only then would it have been conducive for the assassin to operate the concealed switches at the appropriate time.
My friends, in furtherance to their argument, insisted that women could easily reach their back with their hands, citing their being accustomed to fasten brassiere hooks at the back. This line of reasoning didn’t convince me; fastening a brassiere at the back even after years of experience, is a hit or miss for women; my mind’s eye had registered that she succeeds rarely at the first try, often only at the second or third try or more.....
Shrewd observation is one of the primary requisites for an expert. But the observations of my police friends are perhaps crude. I had occasion to observe how womenfolk normally make an effort to wear a bra. ...........Nevertheless we decided to conduct a pilot study to assess this human behaviour by questioning the women themselves. We choose 50 female individuals, most of them our colleagues and student-trainees and requested them to answer this question in anonymity through a questionnaire. All the women described the same method described supra, except a mischievous one answered that she would ask her husband to assist her! This study appeared funny, but all the more turned to be more scientific in evaluating a particular aspect of human behaviour. My colleagues thoroughly enjoyed this study more than I because they could win a score against me. Nevertheless this was indeed a good relaxation in the midst of their otherwise monotonous work. No observation is puerile or petty in forensic situations.

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