New Year's Eve 1947 was a macabre one as it witnessed a murder and a suicide. The body of a nurse, Winnie Francis, was found in a hotel room in New Delhi. She had been stabbed to death after being criminally assaulted. The 23-year-old was from an Anglo-Burmese family of Rangoon but worked in the Capital and stayed in a nurses' hostel. Tall and pretty, she had become friendly with a British captain, who was still serving in the Indian Army prior to his planned departure home. Naturally, Captain Peter Jones was the first suspect and the police were trying to locate him when word came that he had shot himself in the head in a Connaught Place lane, where he had gone to withdraw money.
Inquiries revealed that he had just Rs.100 left in his account and that he was not the one who committed the murder. Whether he shot himself because of grief over his beloved's death or whether it was the shock he got when he found that he had hardly any money left and would not be able to leave the city (and thus avoid the police) could never be ascertained. May be it was due to both reasons that he ended his life.
Further investigations revealed that Winnie wanted to enjoy New Year's Eve at a CP hotel with her boyfriend, who had booked a room for her, before going back to report to his unit. From a letter found in her bag, police learnt that Winnie had served as a nurse in World War II, during the course of which she met Peter Jones.
They became very friendly and wanted to get married but the hitch was that the girl had been already engaged to a Burmese boy named John S. and her parents were keen that she wed him in the New Year. Her refusal to do so is said to have led to the murder.
The police found out that after Peter Jones had left Winnie in the hotel room, she had a visitor with marked Burmese features. The young man stayed in the room for a long time, after which he left in a hurry, saying that he was going to fetch a doctor as his fiancée had suddenly taken ill. But he never returned, instead it was the Captain who went up the stairs to see the girl. Hotel staff noticed that he too left in a hurry and thought that probably he also was on his way to seek medical aid for the incumbent of the remote top room. It was much later that the staff discovered the murder.
According to the late Denzil Cacacie, who too had served in Burma during the war before joining a Barakhamba Road newspaper, the grim double tragedy was announced in St. Martin's Church, Delhi Cantt. on New Year's morning and a pall of gloom descended on the congregation as Capt. Jones was a member of the Church and often attended services there along with his girl friend. To make matters worse, Winnie's kutcha grave in Paharganj cemetery was found vandalised three days after her burial. The suspect in this case too was John S. It seems he had managed to slip back into Burma through a porous border.
Meanwhile, the Captain was buried in the military cemetery at Brar Square. Whether his grave and that of his sweetheart still exist is not known. But Delhi has never seen a bloodier New Year's Eve, though on Dec 25 in the early 1960s the suicide by an inebriated major of the Army was reported by the Statesman with the heading “Macabre Christmas Eve drama”. The major had surprisingly also killed himself after a visit to a CP bank on December 24 where he learnt that he had gone bankrupt.
Now as the Capital decks up for yet another New Year's Eve, one cannot help wondering about how events sometimes repeat themselves, though in the second case there was no love triangle involved.
Published - December 25, 2011 04:18 pm IST
