Sometimes seemingly trivial clues can be very helpful in detecting crime. A fascinating case came my way about 3 years back, which I solved with practically no clues- well, almost. I only had a very trivial clue which no person would have even imagined to be helpful in the least. But let me begin my story from the beginning.

On the morning of August 19, 1990, the body of Sunita Babbar was found in her flat in Ghaziabad. Somebody had killed her hitting her head with a heavy rod.

She was married two years back and had a one year old son. Her husband Rajesh Babbar, a clerk in a local private office was getting Rs. 3000/- per month. they were living in a joint family-the whole family occupying a common ancestral house. the night before the killing, all members of the joint family except Rajesh, Sunita and their little son were out. They had gone to Vaishno Devi for pilgrimage. Since, few times back, tension was brewing up in the house regarding dowry. Sunita's mother in law Tejwanti wanted that Sunita's father should have giving them a colour TV, so that the whole family could enjoy with it.

However, Sunita's father could not fulfil this demand despite his best efforts. This had led to some tension in the house. Sunita's mother-in-law Tejwanti and sister-in-law Lali sometimes used to misbehave with her. Sunita's husband Rajesh used to keep quite and steered himself tension. Sunita was quite tend up with the behavior of her in-laws, even she had written a couple of letters to her parents about this.

In the evening of August 18, Sunita and her husband Rajesh were watching their black and white TV in the drawing room, while their son Raju was sleeping in the other room. At about 9.30 pm. Rajesh's friend Ashok Talwar came and invited him to his house for drinks, as he had recently got the promotion. Rajesh jumped at this offer and immediately got ready to accompany him. When Rajesh went to his bedroom to get ready. Ashok sat near Sunita and began staring at her with lustful eyes. Sunita never appreciated his such habits. Once he had tried to make an obscene pass at her and she had even complained about this to her husband, but Rajesh had laughed the matter off. Sunita had a hunch that Ashok secretly wanted to have sex with her. She had once mentioned this fact in her diary too.

When Rajesh came back from his bedroom after getting ready Sunita requested him not to go away living them alone in the house.

Rajesh did not want to miss the offer of a free drink. He assured Sunita that he will be back around 11 pm. Sunita knew he has giving a false assurance to her, but there was no option for her. Reluctantly she closed the door behind her. Then she went into her room and having nothing better to do started writing her diary. She was in a practice of writing her diary, since last ten years. This diary ultimately fell into the hands of the police from where the hands of the police from where the police came to know of may facts about her. Ashok Talwar's earlier lustful behavior and his behavior and intention on the night of August 18, was also mentioned in the diary.

Apparently Sunita waited for Rajesh upto 12 at midnight and then Slept. Rajesh hadn't come by that time.

The police apprehended Rajesh from the house of Ashok Talwar. Rajesh told the police that on the night of August 18, when he had gone to Ashok Talwar's house, Talwar had offered him drink after drink till the blanked out at Talwar's residence itself.

Ashok Talwar was shady character. He couldn't answer police query very well as to what had prompted him to take away Rajesh to his house on the fateful night, when he knew very well that Sunita would be one. He persisted in saying that he wanted to give Rajesh a treat on his promotion. On enquiry the police found that Talwar had indeed got a promotion about 3 months back. Then, why he gave a treat to Rajesh after such a long period? Apparently there was no sense in giving a party after a long gap. To the police Talwar could not give any reasonable answer. Another remarkable fact was that no other person had been invited for that party. In fact it could hardly be called a party. From all intents and purposes, it appeared that Talwar wanted to have Sunita alone on that night.

Police inspector Chauhan developed a very weird but convincing theory from his investigations. According to him, Talwar was having a lustful eye on Sunita for a long time, but he was not getting a proper chance. When on August 18, Rajesh's family left for Vaishno Devi, Talwar noticed the opportunity. If, he could somehow draw Rajesh away from his house, Sunita would be alone and he would be able to quench his lust. So he came to Rajesh's house at 9.30 pm. and took him away on a very flimsy ground. At his residence, Talwar, completely boozed Rajesh till he lost his consciousness. In the midnight around 12 pm. he came to Sunita's house and rang the bell. Sunita opened the door thinking Rajesh had returned. Thus Talwar gained entry to Sunita's house easily. There he raped her and either killed her afterwards intentionally or she died without his intention to kill her, during the course of rape itself. Frequently during the acts of rape, the rapist tries to stifle the cries of the victim by pushing a pillow against her face. Perhaps to his horror, Talwar found that he had inadvertently killed Sunita and then he bolted away, came back to his house and slept.

The theory seemed very plausible and all the known facts seemed to fit in perfectly well in this story. It was at this stage, that I was called by the police inspector Chauhan to inspect Sunita's body and the scene of crime. Post-mortem examination revealed that Sunita had died because of a head injury. Somebody had hit her head with a heavy rod. There were no signs of suffocation. This was a major blow to Chauhan's hypothesis. Yet he insisted that he was right. He had an intuition that Talwar was the killer. He now said that Talwar must have raped Sunita first and then deliberately killed her. This was also a plausible alternative. All in all we couldn't find much to disprove Chauhan's hypothesis. An examination of Sunita's genitals revealed that she was used to sexual intercourse and on act of sexual intercourse had been performed on her shortly before her death. I could not say much about the timing of the act. It could be just before her death or as long as 10-12 hours before her death. I fixed her time of death (see 'Crime & Detective' February 1993) as 2 am on August 19. This meant that the act of sexual intercourse could have taken place anytime after 2 pm on August 18. this was not of much help as Sunita was alone with her husband on August 18, till 9.30 pm. and that act could reasonably have been done by Rajesh himself. Chauhan was desperate to prove himself right and he went to Rajesh and interrogated him. Certainly a strange question to ask from a recently beloved husband, yet the investigation had to be completed. Rajesh admitted demurely that he and Sunita had sexual intercourse on that day at about 5 pm.

Chauhan's theory was still not busted because even after this, Talwar could have indulged in sex with her. I had not said that Sunita had only thing I could say was that she had engaged in sex shortly before her death. Nobody could have said anything about the number of acts she had gone through.

I now concentrated on the scene of crime- the place where Sunita's body was found and not before long I found two short clippings of nail on the floor. It appeared that Sunita had violently resisted on attack on her and during the scuffle, the assailant tried to scratch her. During this act the nail of the assailant broke and fell on the ground. When we examined Talwar's hands all his nails had been recently clipped. Chauhan insisted that Talwar had become aware of his broken nails and to hide this fact he had clipped all his nails. Anyway, I managed to take a small sliver of nail from each of Talwar's fingers. In 2 hours, I was able to tell Chauhan with cent per cent certainty that Talwar was not the culprit.

How did I do this feat? Well! before I go ahead, look at your nails very carefully. You will find long striations over them, some of them are thick and some are thin. These striations are there in a fixed pattern in each individual. Every individual could be recognized positively by his unique pattern of nail striations. I tried to match the striations of the broken nails, I had found on the floor with the striations of nail silvers, I had clipped from Talwar's hands. I tried hard to match them but couldn't match them at all. We can look at the nail clippings in three major ways. Fig 1 shows all these three ways. One is to look at the untreated fingernail. A better way is to first put a thin layer of metal on the fingernail and then look at it. Another way is to look at it between crossed Polaroid films. Very few crime specialists like to look at the nails in the last way but for the sake of completeness I have mentioned all the ways.

Another important fact to remember is that the striations would not match even in twins sisters. Both fingernails have been taken from the left little finger. You can easily find out that the striations do not match at all.

The striations also do not change over a period of time. They remain constant and are thus a very valuable tool for positive identification. Fig 3 shows 4 clippings form the same person, taken over a period of 10 years. You can see that all striations match perfectly with each other.

So, these clippings really came as a boon for Talwar. He had been arguing about his innocence from the moment he was apprehended but nobody was ready to believe him. In fact all the available evidences pointed so strongly at him that nobody could think in a different way. Now, that Talwar was exonerated, the police made more searches. Rajesh reported very soon that from his almirah some jewellery and cash were missing. The theory now shifted to that of burglary. Three noted burglars of the area were apprehended after 15 days. I took nail clippings of all the three and could say positively that out of them Kartar Singh was the one, who had committed the burglary and murder. His nails striations matched perfectly with those I found on the floor. On sustained interrogations Kartar Singh admitted his guilt. In the court too, Kartar Singh confessed his crime. The court gave due importance to my medical evidence and Kartar Singh was jailed for life. It was at that moment that Talwar came to me and touched my feet. It was my evidence based on science, which had exonerated him.

I sometimes think now, what would have happened, had I not found those clipping, had I not found those clippings? Sooner or later Rajesh would have discovered that his cash and jewellery were missing. But, could merely that finding, in the absence of clippings, have saved Talwar? Could Talwar's lawyer successfully plead in the court that it was the work of a burglar and not of Talwar, because cash and jewellery were missing? I think no, because the prosecution could have argued that Talwar took away cash and jewellery just to give it the look of burglary. Talwar would have been in a difficult position to counter such argument. In fact, in past, sexual murders have been committed by family friends, who have done just this to give the whole situation a look of burglary. Anyway, even if court would have given him the benefit of doubt (which I feel impossible). Talwar would have undergone the agony of a long court ordeal. The finding of nail clippings exonerated him completely in just one go.

Note: Certain figures mentioned in the text may not be visible here. Although not being able to look at the figures would not interfere with the comprehension of the article very much, if it is desired to have a look at the figures, readers are advised to consult the original text in the magazine.

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