29-year-old journalist, (anonymised), was attacked around 10pm in front of the building he lived in. According to an eyewitness, an auto rickshaw driver, who drove the victim home, (anonymised) walked pass someone standing close to the entrance and moments later was attacked from behind by that person. Even though the perpetrator was standing in a well-lit spot, the witness could not give police many details because before the attack he did not paid any attention to that person and the attack took place when he was driving off.
The driver was sure that it was a man, but when he stopped and took a better look, the victim was lying on the ground and the attacker was leaning over him with his back to the witness and hitting the journalist using some object. Moments later, the killer ran away into the dark alley.
The driver, (anonymised), called the police, but when the ambulance and police cars arrived at the scene, (anonymised) was already dead. (anonymised) was put in charge of the investigation as the most senior police officer on the scene. Soon, the police found the murder weapon, which turned out to be a quite heavy stone that fell off the wall of a nearby building wall.
(anonymised) worked for Kanpur Bugle, a local newspaper, as a successful investigative journalist. According to his boss, he was working on an article about (anonymised), a wealthy businessman, who supposedly was flushing potentially dangerous chemicals straight into the river. So far (anonymised) managed to interview (anonymised), who, of course, denied any wrongdoing, but later the story got a bit bigger when (anonymised) found some indications that local police officer (anonymised) and local politician (anonymised) might have been involved in covering for (anonymised). The journalist got some photos of the meeting of the three of them, which seemed suspicious.
On that fateful Friday night, the victim was returning from an editorial meeting with his boss and also picked up his wages (18,500 rupees) from the Kanpur Bugle office. During that meeting, they discussed what will be his next steps in the journalist’s investigation into (anonymised). (anonymised) lived alone in an apartment, he was dedicated to his job. Thus, his boss doubts that he had any enemies outside his job.
According to the coroner’s report, he was attacked from the rear, the first two blows came while he was standing, at least seven more landed when he was lying on the ground. Most likely he died before he hit the ground, which makes the rest of the attack just an overkill.
(anonymised), a 57-year-old businessman, owner of the Cheeta-Kan, dealing in different industries, among them the fibre treating manufacture on the outskirts of Kanpur. (anonymised) suspected that water containing chemicals and industrial dyes was dumped straight into the river. (anonymised) agreed to an interview in his offices downtown, but once the polluting of the river was mentioned he denied any involvement, but then abruptly ended the conversation and had the security guard escort (anonymised) out of the building.
As he told the police, the businessman spent that Friday evening at home and his household servants can confirm that.
(anonymised), a 32-year-old son of (anonymised), sometimes takes part in running Cheeta-Kan, although according to the employees, his father sees him as a lame duck and assigns him only menial jobs around the company. (anonymised) was described by the others as a bit of a loner, who does not operate well under pressure. The Friday night he spent around the town visiting bars, but was unable to provide more details since he was intoxicated most of the time.
