Mumbai:
Kurla in East Mumbai has become the unwilling landing ground for politicians. They come with competing contingents of followers, shouting slogans, and carrying placards. Kurla has earned its VIP attention in the cruellest of ways.
The CCTVs installed in the narrow paths between the different slums, the close to 30 police teams that patrol the area, the parents who grip their children's hands tightly as they walk past - the attempts at vigilance are burdened by a pathological haplessness. The security cameras, after all, didn't stop the rape and murder of a third young girl, not yet 10. Her body was found on Saturday. She was identified as Nusrat.
Nursrat's father, like his neighbours, like the police, believes that Nusrat was the latest victim of a serial killer who struck first in February. After his daughter's death, the anger in Kurla threatens to erupt. New of the serial killings have hurtled Kurla into a national headline. The police is under pressure to prove it can, in this dense matrix of huts and slums, find a murderer.
"Her grandfather had given her money to buy ice candy. She went out to buy it when she was take. Whoever did it is from this area. No one else can know these alleys so well," says Nusrat's father, Kurshid Alam Sheikh.
Two thousand people in the area have been questioned. Among them, policemen and their relatives. A suspected link to the police arises from the fact that the second victim was found on the roof of a building where policemen live with their families. Coupled with the slow investigation, this has led to an ebbing of trust between Kurla and the men assigned to protect it.
Seventy DNA samples have been tested - including that of a relative of a policeman - but have not established any links to the victims.
The vicinity believes it has to fend for itself. So on Wednesday, when resident saw a man offering a sweet to a little girl, they cornered him, then handed him to the police. He is on a list of seven people whose DNA samples have been sent for testing today.
As it hunts for Kurla's killer, the police relies on a sketch of a man described by an 8-year-old girl who nearly found herself trapped with a strange man. Her family is unwilling to share details of how she escaped. At their house in a chawl, they say she's traumatized, and their reassurances, even to their own ears, ring hollow.
As night falls, Kurla's parents organize themselves for another graveyard shift of a neighbourhood patrol. They will cross paths with the policemen on duty. Then they will return to their homes to escort their young children to school. Many will wait for hours outside, exchanging stories quietly about what more can be done to guard their daughters.