As the news has flashed across the TV screens and has been reported in other media, the entire nation has gaped in utter disbelief at the shoddy and amateur manner in which the case has been handled. Each passing day has brought forth further news of the cavalier manner in which the local cops have gone about their work.

Even in the best of circumstances our police force is not known for scintillating detective work but with this case of Arushi’s murder they have set new lows. What they have missed is not the fine evidence that needs specialised equipment to detect. They have missed a whole dead body lying at the site of the crime!

As far as I can understand from the media reports, once the crime was reported by the parents, the police came in, had a look at the body, asked a few questions and when the family servant could not be located they declared that it was an open and shut case. Since many murders in the capital are committed by domestic helpers the police jumped to this conclusion without even going around the house once. A dead body, a missing servant and they decided they had their culprit. What makes their investigating methods even more unbelievable is that they immediately declared a reward of Rs 20, 000 for news leading to the arrest of the servant and sent out teams to Nepal to try and trace him.

One cannot help but shake one’s head in disbelief. It took just one visit by a retired cop who lived in the neighbourhood, to pay his condolences to the family, for the blatantly obvious clues to be brought to attention. He has been reported to say that there were very obvious blood stains in the bathroom and leading all the way to the terrace. Interestingly, the door to the terrace was locked and no one seemed to have the key. When the door was broken open the decomposing body of the servant was found. This must surely be an unparalleled blunder in the annals of police investigations. Even an avid watcher of crime investigation serials would tell you that the one thing you always do in a crime investigation is a detailed search of the crime scene.

Today (May 19) has brought forth more embarrassing lapses on the part of the police. A TV channel is showing us that the blood soaked mattress on which Arushi is thought to have been murdered and a blood soaked sheet lying on the roof top of the family house. Anywhere else in the world this evidence would have been collected and sealed in plastic bags and taken away for forensic examination. Here in our country it lays in the open on the spot where it was found, exposed to the elements and contamination by the stream of curious reporters and visitors. The police has, after some delays, cut out a piece of the mattress and carted it away. What prevents them from sealing and taking away the whole mattress?

This shoddy approach of the police would be laughable if it were not in the context of a crime so tragic. An innocent, young girl with her whole life in front of her has lost her life and five days later all that the police have done is to slowly lurch from one piece of evidence to another in a haphazard manner. There have been some police transfers and new people have been brought in to investigate the case, but so far there hasn’t been much progress.

All questions about the motive behind the murder are hanging in the air. The police have been questioning the parents of Arushi and some ‘close relatives’ in detail and the coming days will hopefully provide some answers as to why Aarushi’s young life was extinguished?

For a national capital whose population is counted in multiples of millions, it is amazing that it has a police force stuck with archaic and unprofessional investigative techniques. The police also seem to be desensitised by the daily chronicles of crime in the national capital region to bother too much about how and when they solve any particular case. There seems no accountability for the cops and the citizens have no choice but to learn to live with fear and injustice as their constant companions.