Murder Most Foul

The following gruesome incident once again illustrates that, of all the species on this planet, none is more vicious, or more depraved than the one that walks on two legs. For the past week or so, the lead story in the Indian media has been the discovery of the remains of twenty-two children - between the ages of 14 and 20 - in a wide drain alongside the mansion of a rich businessman in a village on the outskirts of New Delhi.

Forensic tests on the skeletons have revealed that the first child could have been killed almost three years ago; and the latest victim died around two months ago. A logical question to be asked is why the parents of the murdered children did not report them as missing. They did. The reason that no serious effort to find them was made by the local police is the tragic and shameful reality that still persists in some parts of India. The families of the victims were poor farmers; the alleged perpetrator was rich and well-connected politically. The horrendous deed was discovered only by accident when sanitation workers were cleaning the drain. The motive for the crime is still under investigation. One early theory was that the bodies were carved to recover organs to sell in the black market - but this is now considered unlikely. A more likely scenario is that the children - boys and girls - were held captive and sexually molested before they were killed. The real truth will be hard to determine - except through confessions wrung from the perpetrators. Pathological tests are all but mpossible, because all that remains is bones.