Dead Men Tell No Tales? — The Rajendra Murder Case

This bizarre case in Gurugram, where a dead man's spirit possessed his cousin and told the tale of his own murder, would make you question the oft-heard proverb, ‘Dead men tell no tales.’.

The Rajendra Murder Case. Illustrated by Dishani Goswami: Visual Storyteller at ThisDay

In the state of Haryana, a young man named Rajinder went missing. His family registered a police complaint but to no avail. Being an affluent family, they used all their resources to look for their son, but nothing helped.

And then one night, Rajinder’s spirit purportedly visited his younger cousin Pawan. It told Pawan that he was dead and the family needed to perform his last rites so that he could move on. After many visits, Rajinder’s ghost persuaded Pawan to perform his last rites by going to a dried-up well near their farmhouse and look inside.

After much deliberation, Pawan told this to his tauji, who was Rajinder’s father. With cops involved they all gave the location a visit. The location where Rajinder’s ghost directed Pawan to look at.

Inside the dried-up well, the cops discovered Rajinder’s bloodstained clothes. But the body was still missing. Pawan was arrested for being the prime suspect in the Rajinder murder case. Surprisingly, Rajinder’s parents defended Pawan, saying that he was only trying to help, but the cops did not listen to them.

They interrogated Pawan, but he stuck to his story — his cousin’s ghost visits him and tells him what to do. However, Pawan’s mental state kept deteriorating. In police custody, he would be possessed by Rajinder’s ghost. The case worsened after Pawan’s mental condition became unstable. With the court’s intervention, he was admitted to a psych ward for evaluation.

Doctors diagnosed him with stress and trauma, but he was not considered seriously mentally ill. Nevertheless, he remained in medical custody where the police tried to get a confession out of him. And, eventually,  they even succeeded.

One day, in a state of euphoria, Pawan explained that he wanted to become the sole heir to the family property. To get Rajinder out of his way, he lured him to their farmhouse and slit his throat. He then buried his body in the farmhouse and discarded his bloodstained clothes in a well.

Since then, his story kept meandering and changing with time. Pawan’s lawyer argued that he was on heavy medication, and so nothing he said could stand in court. Besides, Rajinder’s body was still missing, and so, in a way, there was no murder. With these facts and complications, the case is still on trial in a court somewhere in Haryana. Pawan is still under medical supervision and he is still haunted by Rajinder’s ghost, allegedly.