The Murder of Jessica Lal

When in 1999, the body of a beautiful 34 year old model and celebrity bartender was found lying on the floor of the fancy Tamarind Court restaurant in Mehrauli in New Delhi, with a clear bullet wound to her head, her family and the cops thought this was an open and shut case. This was a party of 300 some people, after all. Someone has to have seen someone, someone will come forward. There should’ve been no dearth of evidence in the case at all. And 7 years after the crime, the verdict was out. The Times of India printed the verdict on the front page of their February 22’ 2006 paper. “No one killed Jessica”. This is the story of that night in 1999 when Jessica Lal was killed, yet somehow nobody killed her. This is the story of Jessica Lal.