commentary by Patrick H. Moore
Here in the U.S., a great many of us enjoy a close personal relationship with a pet – which in many cases is the faithful family dog. Nothing warms the cockles of the heart like coming home and being greeted by your loving beast with his or her big warm eyes and affectionate heart.
Of course, not everyone chooses dogs for their pet of choice. We have out cat lovers, our hamster-keepers and even our slightly eccentric ferret people who like nothing better than watching their little beasts sidewind across the carpet.
And, we also have our bird lovers. Canaries, parakeets, parrots – feathered friends who strangely enough can master human language to some degree and appear to feel real affection for the people in their lives. (I am quite ignorant as to the ways and means of raising domesticated birds and will not try to pretend otherwise. I have heard that talking birds are delicate and must be treated with kid/bird gloves.)
A unusual case that comes to us from the city of Agra (home of the Taj Mahal) in Northern India clearly demonstrates that the family parrot may bear deep affection for its human keepers and in some cases may even avenge the most hideous type of foul play (murder) by fingering the murderer(s). Of course, there will be doubters who do not believe it happened this way.
In any event, the Daily Mail Reporter writes:
Vijay Sharma, the editor of a Hindi daily newspaper in Agra in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, returned home to find both his wife Neelam Sharma, 45, and her pet dog, had been murdered.
The only survivor was Hercule the pet parrot, but he had been stunned into silence after witnessing the horrific killings.
The house had also been ransacked and jewelry and cash had been stolen.
The police initially had no obvious leads. This changed, however, when Vijay’s nephew Ashutosh visited their house after the murder.
The widower, Mr. Sharma explained: ‘The parrot that was unusually quiet suddenly started shrieking and flapping around the cage. It was clearly distressed about something and only calmed down when Ashutosh left.’
Although Mr. Sharma was not initially suspicious of his nephew, he did take note of the fact that Hercule’s outburst at the sight of Ashutosh came as a bit of a surprise because the bird had been completely silent since the day Neelam Sharma was murdered.
The clue(s) that led Mr. Sharma to contact the authorities came shortly after Ashutosh’s visit. The grieving husband noted that Hercule reacted with great passion every time he heard Ashutosh’s. Nr. Sharma relates:
‘Then when I spoke to other people, every time I mentioned Ashutosh’s name the parrot would start screeching. This made me really suspicious and I decided to call the police.’
To their credit, the Indian police took Mr. Sharma’s tip seriously. Spokesman Shalabh Mathur stated explained that once Ashutosh became a potential suspect, they examined his phone records and found cause to bring him in for questioning.
I’m not privy to the nature of the strong-arm techniques the Indian police employ to coerce confessions, but whatever they did worked – either that or Ashutosh had a guilty conscience and simply decided to confess.
In his interview, Mr. Mathur described what the police learned: ‘He (Ashutosh) said that he had gone together with a friend to his uncle’s house with the intent of stealing and (had) been surprised by his aunt, who they had killed because they were worried she would have identified them to police. They had then robbed the place before fleeing.’
Mr. Mathur recounted that Ashutosh admitted he had also killed the family dog because he was worried that it might identify him if he appeared as part of a police line-up. (The Indian term for what we call a police line-up is “identity parade”.)
Thus, the devious Ashutosh was clearly concerned about animal witnesses. His mistake was that it never dawned on him that the loyal Hercule, who cleverly chose to remain silent in his cage during the murders, would eventually “finger” him.
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The above narrative is the popular version of how the police tracked down Ashutosh. Unfortunately, according to Pritha Chatterjee of the Indian Express, the story is simply is not true. Chatterjee claims that there was a parrot but that its name was Hira, not Hercule. Chatterjee also claims that the case was solved because the widower Mr. Sharma noticed that although Ashutosh came to the funeral, and still visited at the house, he began acting strangely and would not go near the deceased woman’s room, which led to the bereaved husband becoming suspicious of the youth. This, in turn, led to Mr. Sharma tipping off the police.
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Although India, like the U.S., still has the death penalty, in reality, it is rarely used. In fact,the Indian Supreme Court has permitted the death penalty to be carried out in only 4 instances since 1995 in cases which were termed the “rarest of rare (which shake) the collective conscience of the community”. In November 2012, India again upheld its stance on capital punishment by voting against the UN General Assembly draft resolution seeking to ban the death penalty.
Thus, considering that Neelam Sharma’s murder was allegedly spur-of-the-moment, it appears very unlikely that Ashutosh will be facing the D.P.. He probably will serve a lengthy prison sentence, however, during which he’ll have ample time to gnash his teeth in frustration over throwing his life away.