SRINAGAR: The murder mystery of Anita Gandotra of Jammu is solved finally. Murdered on May 24, at her Resham Ghan residence, interesting speculations were making rounds for her brutal killings, till the police finally revealed its investigations.
Anita was a widow and was teaching in the state run Ancillary Medical Training School, a GMC affiliate where nurses are being trained. She was a dedicated teacher and operating as Vice Principal.
SSP Jammu Dr Sunil Gupta said the “blind murder” was the handiwork of her relative, for whom she had stood guarantee for Rs 30 lakh bank loan.
Police had constituted a special investigation team (SIT) to investigate the case. It made random arrests as clues were evasive. Though police had made enough of studies of the body of slain lecturer, they were still not getting even closer to the real culprit.
Finally, they found out that the killer was already in their custody.
During interrogation, it was Piyush Sawhney who finally broke down and admitted his doings. Police said he had taken a bank loan of Rs 30 lakh and the lecturer – a distant relative, had stood guarantee. Off late, Sawhney had not been going well with his bank and that had impacted the account of Anita. She would routinely tell him to pay back the bank. Tired of her frequent directions to manage his account, on May 24, he visited her home, and attacked her. This led to the killing, according to police.
Piyush is son of her sister in law.
Police’s failure to solve the case had led to strange speculations in Jammu media. A Jammu newspaper initially tried to implicate her son in the crime saying he was taking drugs and was absent from his home for three days. Gopi, her son, had traced her in a pool of flood and invited the attention of neighbours and relatives.
In yet another dispatch, the newspaper tried to give it another direction by saying that she was killed by people whom she was going to expose as VP of the school. “Reported involvement of some of the students in the AMT School into flesh trade is an open secret,” the newspaper said. “So, there is a possibility of involvement of someone behind this blind murder, who was to be exposed by this lady, sources said.”
AMT School, the newspaper said, has always been “a soft target for those operating sex rackets” to lure girls. “Despite the fact that intelligence agencies have given numerous such reports to the government, no action was ever taken to probe and stop this menace because of the involvement of the influential persons,” it added.
Mrs Gandotra is survived by a son and a daughter. The latter is pursuing medical training in Punjab.
