NEW DELHI: In the summer of 1985, a series of transistor bombs exploded in Delhi leaving 49 dead, 127 injured and a city terrorised. The toll was much higher if you add those who died from similar blasts carried out in other states. But the case was cracked within 48 hours due to vital information provided by two unlikely informants: “a beginner-level politician cum-social worker and the other a poor old woman, a migrant from Rajasthan,” claims a new book.
Those two pieces of “community-based intelligence” helped the cops set up a stake-out of prime suspect Kartar Singh Narang’s home in West Patel Nagar, says Khaki in Dust Storm, written by retired cop Amod K Kanth, then DCP (Central) of Delhi. He also supervised the Special Investigation Team set up to investigate the case.
Ved Marwah, then officiating Commissioner of Police, Delhi, asked his officers “not to hurry into action or to conduct any open inquiry.”…