After the disappearance of the rich man’s son, the scammer took his place for 41 years in India (photos)

The following report by Soutik Biswas for the BBC summarizes the almost unbelievable story of fraud and lack of justice.

In February 1977, a teenager disappeared on his way home from school in the eastern Indian state of Bihar.

Kanhaiya Singh was the only son of a prominent landowner (zamindar) in the Nalanda area. His shocked family reported the disappearance to the police but no trace of the child was found.

As efforts to find Kanhaiya were fruitless, his elderly father fell deeper and deeper into depression and began visiting magicians and shamans, until one of them told him that his son was “alive” and would soon “it will appear”.

So in September 1981, a young man in his 20s came to the village, about 15 km from where Kanhaiya lived.

Dressed in traditional Indian clothing, he said he sang and begged for a living. The locals were told that he was the son of a “well-known person” in Murgawan, the lost son of the village.

What happened next is not very clear but when he heard word that his son Kameshwar Singh had returned, he traveled to the village to see him himself.

Some of those accompanying him told Singh that the man was indeed his son and he took him home.

“My eyes are failing and I can’t see well, I’ll keep it,” Singh said, according to police records.

Four days later Singh’s wife, Ramsakhi Devi, who was visiting the capital with Vidya, returned to the village and she realized that it was not her son.

She also mentioned body marks the person did not have and did not even recognize his school teacher, but the elderly father said he is convinced it is his son.

A few days after the incident, Ramsakhi Devi reported the identity theft and her husband was arrested, before being released on bail a month later.

What happened next is a sad story of lies to a man claiming to be the owner’s missing son, who infiltrated his home again.

During this time the fraudster had gone to university, got married and used several false identities.

With his identities he voted, paid taxes, got a gun license and sold about 20 acres of Singh’s properties.

He refused to give his DNA to prove it was the same as the owner’s daughter.

It was later revealed in court that he had gone out of his way to “kill” his old identity with a fake death certificate.

But the story of the fraudster and his late conviction is also one of a crippled justice system in India where an estimated 50 million cases remain pending trial, some 180,000 of which have been waiting for 10 years.

His trial spanned more than three decades and was heard by at least 12 judges.

Murgawan is a small village with 1,500 inhabitants in Nalanda

The last marathon trial found Gosai guilty and sentenced him to seven years of “rigorous” imprisonment.

Kanhaiya was 16 when he disappeared but now seems to have been forgotten in Murgawan, the sleepy village of about 1,500 wealthy Hindus, about 100km from Patna.

Kameshwar Singh, who died in 1991, was an influential landowner who owned more than 30 acres of land.

The court believes there is a wider conspiracy to install Gosain within the Singh family as his prodigal son.

The judge believes that his accomplices are the ones who bought Singh’s land, but the investigation continues.

Under Indian law, a person missing for more than seven years is considered dead, but the case is still open.

top channel