The Man Who Knew Too Much..

The curious case of the familicide of Major Avatar Singh in California caught my attention recently. Here was a sensational story waiting to explode, with much more that met the eye, quietly being brushed under the carpet with astonishing nonchalance.

Quite chillingly the Major had predicted his own death almost a year ago, if he were to be extradited (http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/nation/the-man-who-knows-too-much). Suspiciously, the case is up for hearing on June 13^th in Srinagar. Even more suspicious is none of this was mentioned in any of the news items that I had read about the murder-suicide. Even a usually feisty and wildly speculative FirstPost posted an extremely tepid news item (http://www.firstpost.com/world/ex-indian-army-officer-kills-family-self-in-california-338497.html). The two main sources of information I got of the case, from Open Magazine and Tehelka, was so dichotomous that they couldn’t even agree on the name of the main witness (read tehelka’s version here: http://www.tehelka.com/story_main49.asp?filename=Ws210311ARMED_FORCES.asp).  Surely the conspiracy theory loving Americans would have done a bit of digging before dismissing this not-so-open-and-shut-case?

What’s even more astonishing that with such massive publicity the case had drawn, the overwhelming evidence and the Major living in blatant plain sight, the authorities let his sedentary existence slide for 13 years! A chilling indictment of the Army’s iron fist in war ravaged Kashmir.

Makes you wonder if the Indian Intelligence is indeed capable of staging a murder-suicide, and in the US, at that! There are a spate of Indian-high profile-suicides doing the rounds for any of this to look coincidental. Or was it purely a case of PTSD catching up with him? But then, why kill his own family?

The one thing that I do know is that the ‘little guy’ has no chance against the ‘big guy’ in a country like ours.