SECOND EDITION CRAFTY MURDERERS

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXX, Issue 189, 19 August 1935, Page 8

SECOND EDITION CRAFTY MURDERERS

Plague Germs Injected INTO A VICTIM f AMAZING INDIAN CASE LONDON, March 2. India has provided the latest example of the crime which is nearly “perfect’’ enough to allow a murder to go unsuspected. The murder can, of course, be planned and executed; otherwise there would be no unsolved murder mysteries. Many such exist in criminology. ; The Indian murder could be de-, scribed as a natural death artificially . contrived. So diabolically cunning was ' the plot that but for one small «an.d i apparently immaterial slip, the death j of the victim would have attracted no , unusual notice; the slip was that the j germs injected were those of plague, which had not been known in the district concerned for years. The Motive The beginning of this strange story goes back to the common motive of a man living beyond his means and planning to remove the life that stands be- # tween him and greater resources. Binoyendra Pandle and Amarandra Pande were step-brothers and co-sharers m an ancestral property in the Sonthal Parganas —a district in Bengal, south of Calcutta—which brought in between £2OOO and £2500 a year. Binoyendra had becit getting into debt, and decided to get rid of Amarandra by means whihe the Public Prosecutor described as “a plot whihe in its enormity and well-planned, scientific design was unparalleled in the annals of crime in India. ’ ’ Binoyendra achieved his design by bringing in Taranath Brattacharya, a Calcutta doctor and bacteriologist. The two originally decided upon plague as the means of reinoving Amarandra, and attempted to secure a tube of bacilli from the famous Haffkine Institute ini Bombay. In this they failed, but another research institute, under importunity. was more accommodating. It sent a tube of culture, which, however, was found to be sterile. The (plotters then decided to try tetanus. One evening, as the stepbrothers were strolling near their country home. Binoyendra contribed to

smear some tetanus germs on an abrasion near Amarandra’s nose. The vic-

tim suffered for some days, but recovered, although it was alleged that a doctor (also charged but acquitted) was brought from Calcutta to ensure that the germs did their work.

Determined to achieve their purpose, Binoyendra and Taranath then set about a surer method of obtaining a culture of plague germs. They went to Bombay, where they affected an in-

terest in cures of plague. Eventually Taranath was able to steal a phial of germs from the laboratory of a hospital which had given him,facilities for experiments. Thus equipped. Amarandra was - lured to Calcutta with a false telegram. Entering the crowded waitinghall at Howrah station, he was jostled and felt a prick in his arm: thus, according to the prosecution, was the administering of an injection of plague with a needle carried out. He complained of the prick which he had received, but Binoyendra, who was with him, made light of it as an insect bite. (At the trial expert evidence was given that the slight wound was a puncture, not a bite). Binoyendra, the (purpose of the Calcutta journey served, persuaded Amarandra to return home, when: he sickened. Thereupon he returned to Calcutta for treatment, but soon died. He was attended in the last stages by a

well-known bacteriologist and.professor at the Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine, who certified that death was flue to septic pneumonia. The body was buried in accordance with Hindu custom.

However, a blood count, which had ben taken revealed plague infection, This was a stratling discovery for Bengal wihis has been free from plague for miany years and where infection from the rat-flea is hardly imaginable.

Thereupon the Calcutta detective branch became interested, and finally pfeced together the remarkable plot as revealed in court. The trial lasted 140 days. Eighty-five witnesses were called, including several purdanashin ladies from the Pande family. Over 300 exhibits were produced. The Judge’s summing-up occupied three and a half days. Binoyendra

and Taranath were sentenced to death on. the jury’s verdict that Amarandra died of plague, injected by needle. Thus India has provided one of the most sensational crimes of the century, and one which, but for the choice of an unusual disease —selected, no doubt, for its swift action —might never have roused a breath of suspicion.