What makes a killer, nature or nurture? Does the outdated yet still overused category ‘psychopath’ hold any water at all?
Psychopaths are hard to define. In India, there is no legal definition of psychopathy. And yet, such violent crimes that go beyond the reasonable cycle of motive, action and gain, have been on the rise, especially since the Shradha Walkar case was reported.
What makes a killer, nature or nurture? Does the outdated yet still overused category ‘psychopath’ hold any water at all?
Days after the disturbing murder of Shradha Walkar, who was killed and dismembered by her partner Aftab Poonawallah in Delhi, a similar gruesome killing has grabbed headlines. This time, the accused is named Sahil Gehlot. As per reports, the 24-year-old strangled his live-in girlfriend, cut up her body and stuffed it inside a refrigerator inside a ‘dhaba’ (eatery) that he owned.
The incident occurred in southwest Delhi and as per the police, the accused went on to marry another woman the same day. Gehlot, who is a resident of Matron village in Southwest Delhi, has since been arrested by the police.
As gory details of the crime circulate on social media, the incident has once again given rise to questions about gender based violence, violent crimes and mental health with many on social media wondering if this was another act by a psychopath.
But who really is a psychopath and how does one go about defining psychopathic crimes?
Psychopaths are hard to define. In India, there is no legal definition of psychopathy. And yet, such violent crimes that go beyond the reasonable cycle of motive, action and gain, have been on the rise, especially since the Shradha Walkar case was reported.
Days after the discovery of Walkar’s murder, the decomposed body of a woman was found inside a drum near the railway station in Yeshwanthpur near Bengaluru. In another case, a man in Azamgarh was arrested for allegedly killing his girlfriend, cutting his body up and disposing of it in a well.
While the crimes tend to raise the obvious question about psychopathy, activists also question the gender based aspect of the crimes and how safety available to women under changing kinship patterns.
In wake of the recent murder, Outlook revisits its 2022 issue ‘I Am A Neat Monster’ which took a nuanced and dispassionate look at what makes a killer and under what conditions a person is compelled to commit the unspeakable: the act of murder in all its gory reality.
In the issue, we delved into the making of a “killer” and tried to understand if killing is the “province of special people or are we all capable of it”.
We also tried to find out who a psychopath is and how, if at all, one can identify a “psychopath” before they kill.
We also looked at how the Indian judicial system fails to understand the linkages between mental health, social stratification and crime, resulting in a failure to understand and most importantly prevent such crimes.