Ankur Bhowal, a college teacher and resident of Purbachal Cluster IV, had never imagined that keeping his back door open would invite a suspected murderer into his home.
“I had never heard anyone slam the back door that hard. It didn’t feel right,” said Bhowal, who teaches at Vidyasagar College. “My wife, son, and father-in-law were home, but I knew it couldn’t be them. They’d never slam the door so ruthlessly.”
He was standing near the front door when he heard the noise. A few seconds later came a scream: someone shouting “chor, chor”.
“And then a man emerged from inside my house — someone I had never seen before. He was very tall, maybe close to seven feet, and had a cold, piercing stare,” Bhowal said.
The man, later identified as one of the suspects in the October 7 murder of Rajasthan businessman Ramesh Rulania, had reportedly entered Bhowal’s home while trying to escape the police after being spotted near Swabhumi on Thursday night.
“He was speaking Hindi, but in a different dialect. He tried to pretend there was a thief outside and that he was chasing him. But I instantly sensed something was off,” Bhowal recalled.
Gathering his courage, he told the man to leave the house immediately.
“He strode through the rooms like he knew the way, from the back door straight out the front. It was chilling.”
Bhowal said he still cannot recognise which of the three arrested men it was. “I’ve seen all their faces now, but I honestly can’t tell which one entered my house. What I remember clearly is that he was very tall. And that stare,” he said on Friday.
The man later climbed to the terrace, lay low on the cornice, and eventually scaled down a pipeline in an attempt to flee. He was caught outside the IPS officers’ quarters near the housing complex.
“No harm was done to my family, thankfully,” Bhowal said. “But it was a huge lesson. I’d never thought the back door needed to be locked.”
The back door opens to the boundary wall, which directly overlooks the main road and the Salt Lake stadium. “We never thought there could be security issues like what happened on Thursday,” he added.