EYES IN THE SHADOWS WRITTEN BY MICHAEL EDISON HAYDEN PHOTOGRAPHED BY AYUSH RANKA FOR FIVE-YEAR-OLD SURESH, the 28TH come. “I knocked on the door, but no In March 2011, the of February, 1998 was an ordinary one answered,” Suresh recounts. He Supreme Court upheld school day. At 1pm, his mother Jay- walked around outside for half an the death sentence shree brought him back to their home hour, killing time. in Peenya, an industrial district of When Suresh approached the house of serial killer Umesh Bangalore. It was just the two of them again, a stranger came to the door. Reddy for the gruesome – Suresh’s father had died of cancer “My name is Uncle Venkatesh,” he crimes he committed when he was three. That afternoon, said. “I’m a friend of your mother’s. Jayshree made Suresh his favourite She’s sick and I’m leaving to fetch a 13 years ago. GQ has meal, Maggi noodles, and after lunch, doctor.” From the corner of his eye, a chilling encounter Suresh went out to play cricket with Suresh saw his mother lying on the his friends. He usually played until his floor, tied up and strangled. Her limp with the man known as mother dragged him home. That day body was covered with multi-coloured ILLUSTRATION: SAUMIN PATEL ‘India’s Jack the Ripper’ the match ended, and Jayshree didn’t saris. Blood seeped through the 000 — SEPTEMBER 2011 SEPTEMBER 2011 — 000 EYES IN THE SHADOWS light fabrics, flowing between her bare in his home state of Karnataka during prostitute victims. Mysore, where at least two similar feet. Suresh reached for the stranger: the late Nineties, when sensationalist What we do know is Reddy’s crime cases became attached to his name. reaLity TV “Don’t go,” he said, “I’m scared.” The reporting was less common in India. spree began in 1996, while he was He then shot up to Gujarat, where Suresh had only one photo of his dead stranger told him not to cry. After an So despite being given the death working in the Central Reserve Police he rampaged through Ahmedabad mother. It was bor- hour and a half of quietly comforting sentence for serial murder and rape – Force in Kashmir. Fellow officers re- and Baroda before drifting down to rowed by a TV station and never returned the boy, the killer stood up and left. some of which allegedly also involved membered him as a “lone wolf” who Mumbai, where he committed at least Why he didn’t harm the boy, the wit- necrophilia – Reddy’s story remains possessed a “highly introverted soul”. three other rapes. With the Mumbai ness who would finally identify him as shrouded from the public eye. The Six months into the position, Reddy Police hot on his heels, Reddy eluded the murderer, remains a mystery. exact number of women Reddy raped brutally raped his commanding of- arrest again. He then completed a By all accounts but his own, Umesh remains unknown, as do the number ficer’s teenage daughter and then fled geographical circle, returning to Reddy is a monster. If his lust-murders of murders, perhaps due to the stigma back to his hometown of Chitradurga, Bangalore. There, he rented a room in had taken place in the American of coming forward in such cases, as where, incredibly enough, he managed Peenya, the town where he committed Midwest, he would have become a well as Reddy’s careful selection of to get another job in law enforcement, his final crime, the brutal rape and grotesque media star. Reddy, however, women without social attachments this time with the District Armed murder of Jayshree. committed the majority of his crimes and the strong possibility of “faceless” Reserve police force. THE MASSIVE GREY walls of Belgaum Central Prison, which houses Reddy today, are covered in giant beehives. The peeling death-row complex is home to some of the deadliest crimi- nals in South India. I was made to wait at the gate while a group of prisoners were ushered out at gunpoint. A panel of murmuring authority fig- was acting as Reddy’s ures reviewed my permission letter advocate. It was only after 20 minutes with scepticism. “Why do you want of wrangling with this other inmate to meet Umesh Reddy?” one official that Reddy finally agreed to sit down asked incredulously. “Don’t you know and talk. he’s a maniac?” The rest of the death-row inmates I was led through a dreary, rain- gathered around a small table to listen Reddy’s familiarity with the hilly soaked field by an aging guard who to our conversation. Reddy took out interiors of his birthplace made it had missing teeth and no gun. He ush- a large file of court documents and fertile ground for the perpetuation of ered me through a medieval wooden clippings from his trial, and dropped his crimes. Nine months into the new door leading to a cluster of prison it on the table with a thud. “I’ve been job, he was identified by a high school cells, and then left me alone to go wrongfully accused,” he said, point- girl while marching at the Republic fetch Reddy. A group of unkempt men ing to a newspaper clipping from Day parade – she claimed Reddy had dressed in white gathered around and The Indian Express with bullet-points recently raped her and that she’d man- began lobbing questions at me: “Who ic, paranoid-looking man with greying describing him as a sexual fetishist, a aged to escape death by pummelling are you and why did you come here?” hair and a moustache – I immediately necrophile and a transvestite. “All of his head with a brick. Other women one asked. “I’m just a visitor,” I ex- recognized him as Reddy from mug these accusations here? All false,” he soon came forward with similar sto- plained. “Nobody comes here unless shots I’d seen. Reddy was flanked by a grabbed my arm to convey the urgen- ries of abuse. Reddy was arrested and they want something from us,” anoth- wild-eyed man, also dressed in white, cy of his words. charged with the death of Roopa, a er man insisted. “I just want to talk to who claimed to be an ayurvedic doc- “What about Jayshree?” I asked. 16-year-old girl who was found dead Umesh Reddy,” I stammered. I later tor. “Why you want to talk to Reddy?” He swallowed the tension in his throat after disappearing while on her way learnt that these men were members this man asked. “I’m writing a maga- and muttered two words: “False home from a local flourmill. Reddy of the mass-murdering Dandupalya zine article about him,” I explained. witness.” claimed he had been framed, and then gang and the group that plotted Reddy looked at me with suspicion, escaped while being transferred by Bangalore’s 2000 serial bombings. but said nothing. “What you want to REDDY’S UPBRINGING SEEMS no dif- bus from Bellary to Bangalore. It was It’s fair to say that Jonathan write about him for?” the man de- ferent from a vast majority of India’s one of five times he broke free from Demme’s The Silence Of The Lambs manded. I explained that no reporter poor. Still, it was unnerving to hear capture during his reign of terror. played a large role in forming my men- had actually spoken to Reddy, and this man who murdered and raped so In the two or three months follow- tal picture of serial killers in captiv- redirected my attention to the man many young women, and left a young ing the bus escape, Reddy was impli- ity. In that film, Hannibal Lecter is in question. “Mr Reddy, my name is boy orphaned, look back on his own FINAL cated in a white-hot flash of rapes, locked behind an impenetrable poly- Michael. I’m a writer. Do you want the childhood with idyllic sentimental- destiNatioN assaults and murders of the type that fibre wall. The death-row inmates of opportunity to tell your story?” The ity: “It was just me and my parents in Umesh Reddy alleg- edly escaped capture resemble few crime sprees in recent Belgaum Central Prison, however, are words sounded empty. Reddy whis- Chitradurga. I had many friends and five times before memory. He rented a flat in Bangalore, permitted to wander around the con- pered something to the “doctor”. “He was always playing.” If he faced any landing on death row where he sexually battered five fines of the facility, unhinged. doesn’t trust the media,” the wild- emotional or psychological trauma women. After that, he darted through The guard returned with an athlet- eyed man explained. It was clear he during this period, the kind that 000 — SEPTEMBER 2011 000 — SEPTEMBER 2011 EYES IN THE SHADOWS to Vinay Madhav, the crime reporter who originally broke the case, Reddy’s mother was “complicit in his actions”. Reddy often gave the loot he stole from his victims over to the care of his mother, who stored it proudly behind her stove. Reddy’s mother, a woman for whom he has an intense devotion, has ap- pealed for presidential pardon – the outcome is likely to be a long way off. Reddy told me that he feels “terri- fied of dying” and that “every night he cries himself to sleep, hoping his mother will be OK.” Shackled or not, death row is clearly trying on the hu- man psyche. Suresh, the surviving witness of Reddy’s most publicized attack, does his best not to think about his brief tangle with the man the Times of India called “India’s Jack the Ripper”.