NEW DELHI, 3 October 2006 — The Jessica Lall murder case has hit the headlines again with a private news channel showing the prime accused, Manu Sharma, confessing to having killed her.
Lall, a model-turned-bartender who worked in a restaurant owned by socialite Malini Ramani, was shot dead April 29, 1999. Sharma’s statement was recorded on a CD seven days later. The CD, which has been presented to the Delhi High Court, is expected to spell trouble for Delhi police. Why did the police not use this piece of crucial evidence during the trial?
On the fateful night, Manu says that soon after arriving in Delhi after attending a wedding in Jaipur, he called his friends Vikas Yadav, the son of the politician D.P. Yadav, and Tony Gill. “We decided to go to Qutub Colonnade,” Sharma says in the confession. “We reached at about 10:15 and there were a lot of people, usually 1/4th of the crowd was there,” Sharma said, adding that he bought a coupon for a whiskey bottle and went inside the bar.
“At that point of time, there was some guy in a black T-shirt who gave the first drink. Inside the bar, there were at least three waiters behind the bar counter.... there was Malini Ramani,” Sharma says in his confession.
When the police questioned Sharma whether he knew Ramani, he replied, “No, sir. There was Jessica Lall. I did not know her name. I think Malini said that even if you give thousand bucks, I will not give a sip of wine drink and I said that we have got an arrangement there. I pulled out my pistol there,” Sharma said.
At this point police sought details about the pistol to which Sharma replied: “It is 22/.2Z pistol made in Italy,” which he had bought three or four months before the incident. “Sir, I have a license from Chandigarh and bought it from Ambala for about 16,000 rupees and I fired one shot in the air.”
“Air?” asked the police. “Yes, that is inside the Colonnade. So it went into the roof and nobody bothered, nobody moved... all chatting and chatting. Then I pointed at Jessica and what I intended to do was I pointed slightly away from her so that I could see her hair, I wanted to generally shoot.”
At this the police asked: “What was the idea?” “Idea was generally at that time to shoot in challenge, how embarrassing that she said that even if you give thousand bucks you will not get a sip of my drink,” Sharma replied.
“I pointed toward her a little and fired the shot. So I think I hit someone, I was just trying to see what had happened, when this lady comes up there,” Sharma recalled. “(She was) oldish, thin and she says you don’t worry and stay here and then I realized something had happened. Then I could hear people saying somebody has shot. I knew I should move.”
Sharma took a lift and reached Tony’s house by hitching rides. His friends Alok and Vikas were already there. They told him that Jessica Lall was dead. It was then that Sharma realized that his car was still there and he handed his friends the car keys who brought it back. They made another trip to retrieve the pistol, which he had misplaced at a roadside eatery after escaping from the bar.
If the CD is genuine, there remains no doubt according to legal experts that Sharma killed Lall and was acquitted because of political pressure. While the CD is certain to land Sharma behind bars, it also spells trouble for Delhi police for not having used it till now.
