Is there a psychopath on the prowl in Delhi?

Since July this year, four women have been murdered and six others have survived attacks 

NEW DELHI: Nobody has seen him and police dismiss him as a "media-generated idiom". But fact or phantom, the "hammerman" lurks at every corner in west Delhi's Baljeet Nagar where people live in constant fear and wake up bracing for news that one more woman has been bludgeoned.

Police have failed to crack the mystery behind the four deaths in the working class neighbourhood in the past three months. All the women died of severe head injuries. Six other women have been attacked over the past two years, but survived.

The modus operandi was identical. According to residents of the area, the victims were hit on the head with blunt objects in the dead of the night by the psychopath, who has come to be known as hammer-man. Over 300,000 people residing in the semi-slum colony of Baljeet Nagar, close to the bustling Patel Nagar area, dread that the mystery killer will strike in their house next.

"People, especially women, are petrified. The whole day we keep discussing where he will strike next and which woman will become his prey in the middle of night," said Rama Devi, 45, who lives in the Bheel Basti in Baljeet Nagar.

"We are relieved when we hear no awful news next morning. Police say that there is no hammerman. But if he does not exist then why are women continuously being attacked and killed?" she asked.

The fear is palpable with the number of early morning attacks increasing, even as residents, mostly labourers, patrol the congested and narrow bylanes of their slum every night.

The night vigil begins at 11 pm when the power supply goes off in the area and continues until 3 am when it returns.

Delhi police, however, have rejected the hammerman theory as a figment of the imagination. Officials believe the incidents of murders and attacks are unrelated and the hammerman could be a product of mass hysteria. "There is no hammerman or psychopath in the Baljit Nagar area of Anand Parbat. These are media generated idioms," said deputy commissioner of police (West Delhi) Robin Hibu. He is of the view that the incidents were not interlinked or connected.

Between July this year and September 27, four women have been killed in the urban slum where houses are clustered close together. On September 27, Sangita Gupta, a 22-year-old newly married woman, was found murdered at her parents' home in the Janata Colony with severe head injuries.

A week earlier on September 20, Sudarshana, a 45-year-old widow, was found killed in her one-room tenement. On August 10, 19-year-old Rajni was murdered after being hit on the head. It's the one case police claim to have solved with the arrest of her 80-year-old grandmother and her brother-in-law.

Before that, in July, people believe the hammerman claimed his first victim when he attacked 25-year-old Seema as she stepped out to go to the toilet around 4.30 am.

In all cases, robbery was ruled out as a motive because no valuables were stolen. After Sangita Gupta's murder last week, police reiterated that it was not the work of any imaginary hammerman. The culprit could have been somebody who had a personal enmity with the women. “He might have settled his scores thinking that people would again suspect the hammerman and he would go scot-free easily,” said a senior police official.

The frightening saga of the hammerman, whether or not he actually exists, reminds many of the monkey man who was said to be on the prowl in Delhi in 2001. Scores of people had complained of having been attacked by a mysterious creature that looked like a monkey. While the creature was never found, police had arrested several for spreading rumours. Is it more of the same, or are the fears of the residents for Baljeet Nagar for real? Only time will tell.