Desi Sherlocks snoop around

PRIVATE EYES: Detective agencies are in high demand during wedding season.

The bride’s family found something amiss when the groom arrived in a taxi for the engagement ceremony. On a matrimonial site he had claimed to be a prominent property dealer owning an Audi car and a bungalow in a plush west Delhi locality.

Her father immediately contacted a private detective, Naresh Sood, and asked him to do a background check on the man.

“We searched the entire database of property dealers in Pitampura and nearby areas, but could not find his name. We visited his address to realise that neither did he own any car, nor did the bungalow belong to him. He had rented a small portion of the house just prior to the marriage,” says Sood, an ex-RAW official who founded Triple Ess Investigators, a private detective agency, four years ago.

The marriage was called off as it was understood that the man was only looking for a hefty dowry.

At a time when weddings are expensive and marriages tend to break up, an increasing number of people like Sood are being sought to do matrimonial investigations.

And in the current wedding season, business is booming for hundreds of private detective agencies in the city that have mushroomed over the years.

While most seeking pre-matrimonial services are parents of brides or grooms, there are several young men and women who want their future partners investigated before they tie the knot.

Some even go to the extent of demanding that the detectives carry out loyalty tests on their partners.

Services are being sought by all kinds of people; from insecure boyfriends to concerned fathers, from suspicious wives to men seeking divorce.

“A woman once wanted me to investigate if her boyfriend was gay. I sent my men to keep a tab on him. We followed him for five days and finally saw him kissing another boy in a cinema theatre. We handed over the pictures to his girlfriend who was left shattered after that,” says Sood.

When it is the lean season for weddings, the detectives are busy gathering evidence for their clients seeking divorce.

“People are seeking divorce like never before. Many approach us to gather evidence that would help settle alimony cases. Some want evidence that their partner has been earning, others seek proof that their partner has been cheating,” says J P Rawat, managing director of Insight, an investigative agency that specialises in corporate investigations but also deals in matrimonial cases.

Rawat too is an ex-RAW official and started his company 16 years ago.

Most detectives Deccan Herald spoke to said there were more demands for post-matrimony investigations as compared to probes before marriage.

Time and cost vary accordingly. While pre-matrimonial investigations cost anywhere between Rs 7,000 to Rs 20,000 for general surveillance spanning one to two weeks, post-wedding cases can run into months and cost many times over.

Investigating most of these cases can be a tedious process.

Waiting game

“There have been times when our detectives have waited six hours before they were able to even spot the target. It is all about cultivating sources for information, following the targets, noting down their behavior and habits and clicking pictures or recording videos,” says Ajai Vikram Singh of Insight.

Several investigations require long chases in cars or motorcycles.

“We use more than one vehicle and one detective in such chases so that a switch can be made as soon as the target suspects that we are following,” says Arti Kumari, a detective with National Detective & Corporate Consultants (NDCC), which handles between 25 and 30 pre-matrimony cases every month.

While there is almost no need for detectives to carry a magnifying lens – unlike what is portrayed in popular movies and novels – detectives are increasingly relying on gadgets to present evidence. Clients are no more satisfied with mere written observations.

They want photographs and videos as evidence for which investigators rely on spy cameras and audio recorders. Mobile phones have been rapidly replacing handycams and regular cameras, which  draw attention.

“There have been times when we have sought the help of our clients to fix a GPS device in their partner’s car so that their movements can be tracked,” says Sood. In one case, GPS helped a man realise that his fiancee was indulging in prostitution.

On another occasion, he advised his client to himself keep a tab on his wife’s movement.

“I told him to gift her a new mobile phone – but only after installing a particular software that would help him continuously monitor her movements,” he adds. Women are generally preferred for chasing targets as they arouse less suspicion.

“It is also legally safer to use women detectives to stalk women targets. If women are unavailable, we put aged men on the job,” says Sood, whose team of eight detectives includes two women.

While one is a journalist, another is a housewife. Both work part time to earn extra money.
The profiles of the private investigators range from college students to ex-RAW and IB officers. Heads of private detective agencies say they generally do not prefer to hire retired policemen as detectives.

“Police are known to be corrupt. Where there is corruption, efficiency is bound to be low,” says an investigator who does not want to be named.

“Police extract information using batons. Minus their uniform, most of them would be ineffective in this profession if asked to work incognito like us,” says Sood.

Corporate clients

The work of these detectives is not limited to matrimonial and cheating cases alone. From collecting evidence against rival corporate houses to tracking missing people, they offer it all.

Most of them claim to also be prepared to solve hard crime cases, but they rarely receive any.
“People know that they necessarily have to report a murder to police, so we do not come into the picture. But people have approached us to track their missing aged parents who accidentally loitered away from home, or went missing otherwise. Unlike police who can take months to trace such people, we are considered efficient,” says Ashok Kumar, another detective with NDCC.

Private companies also bring in business. During the 1999 Cricket World Cup, Rawat received a request from ESPN & Star Sports to curb the illegal activities by cable operators.

“The cable operators were replacing the official advertisements with local ones during breaks between overs. Our teams met the various cable operators in the city and issued veiled threats of blocking their signals once we had gathered evidence against them,” says Rawat.

He also does background checks on employees of private companies.

“There was a time when many companies reported cases of data pilferage by employees. We were tasked with checking the antecedents of several employees without even their knowledge,” says Rawat.

Only a few weeks ago, NDCC was approached by a private school owner from whom a powerful local politician was trying to extort money and seize her land. The agency is currently working to gather evidence of  alleged wrongdoing by the  politician.

Any dirt gathered by the private detectives will help the client, whether she choses to sit across the table to settle the issue with the politician or approaches the law.

The detectives know that much of what they do can be called illegal work. Voyeurism is a major concern, mainly in matrimonial investigations.

“There is a thin line between legal and illegal. We try to stay on the legal side of that line,” says Rawat.

Legal until caught

Some others say everything they do is legal till they are caught. But the detectives claim evidence collected by them has gone on to help their clients win court cases.

The investigators complain they receive no assistance whatsoever from the police or other authorities.

“We want our profession to be regulated so that our work can be treated at par with journalists and police. We want access to information which is readily made available to people like you,” Arti tells this reporter.

Many are members of Association of Private Detectives and Investigators that has been lobbying with government to regulate this profession. There has been little progress however, complain detectives.

While these private investigators provide you the information you seek, they insist that a few days of surveillance cannot accurately judge a person’s character. They only provide what is visible on the surface.

“Dil ki guarantee nahi de sakte hain (We do not guarantee what is in the mind),” says Rawat.