On Saturday, Subhash Chander went to the door of his daughter and son-in-law’s apartment, poured gas outside of it, and dropped his lighter. Inside, 22-year old Monika Rani, 36-year old Rajesh Arora and their three-year old son Vansh were sleeping. Monika was five months pregnant with this monster’s next grandchild.
All three perished of smoke/soot inhalation and carbon-monoxide poisoning.
Their charred bodies were recovered later; little Vansh was found in the hallway, I wonder if he woke up, scared from the blaze and ran for her. Three innocent people, dead. Several dozen more, most of whom were new immigrants from India, homeless, but thankfully, alive. And for what?
A cultural slight?
Arora was from a “lower caste” than Subhash Chander, whose actions obviously bring glory to his lofty peers. Chander did not approve of his son-in-law and there are conflicting reports of Arora marrying without the man’s permission. Even if such things are true, incinerating three innocent people while selfishly, thoughtlessly threatening the lives of so many others takes a special kind of psychopath.
Subhash Chander, 57, told police that he resented the couple for what he considered a “cultural slight” — that his daughter Monika Rani, 22, had married a man from a lower caste and done so without his consent, according to a court document.
Chander and his son-in-law had a strained relationship throughout his marriage to Rani, which lasted a little more than three years, said First Assistant Cook County State’s Atty. Robert Milan.
“Apparently there’s been trouble going on between the two of them for years,” Milan said. “It’s pretty clear from the defendant’s own statements and other evidence that we have that he did not like his son-in-law at all.”
Chander was charged Monday night with three counts of first-degree murder, one count of intentional homicide of an unborn child and one count of aggravated arson. Judge Martin E. McDonough ordered him held without bail Tuesday during a hearing in Markham. [Chicago Tribune]
Chander’s story is that there was a shoving match with his son-in-law, while he was holding a container of gas. Some of it “splashed” around inadvertently and then…
Chander told police that he became “upset and angry” and pulled a lighter from his pocket and set the carpet on fire, according to a court record. [Chicago Tribune]
Because that explanation somehow makes this situation better? Is setting fire to a carpet a harmless way to register your discontent? Beyond that stupidity, there is this curious fact:
…prosecutors said the victims may have been asleep. All other residents of the apartment building were able to escape, Milan said.
It took firefighters three hours to extinguish the blaze, which gutted the 36-unit Le Claire Station Apartments. [CNN]
Incidentally, these murders occurred in Cook County, which is also where officials spent a quarter of a million dollars looking for flakey and apparently oblivious-to-leaving-a-note Anu Solanki. Enough about her, though— there is a far uglier coincidence to consider:
The incident was the third case in five months in which fire was used during a domestic dispute involving an Indian family in the Chicago suburbs.
In November, authorities said a 34-year-old Glendale Heights father set fire to his two young sons. The three survived, though the boys remain in critical condition. In August, a 32-year-old Naperville mother set her house on fire, killing herself and her two children.
Both cases involved couples who had moved recently from India and had troubled marriages. [Chicago Tribune]
There is conflicting information regarding the family dynamics, from friends of the couple:
A friend, Brijesh Patel, 32, recalled attending the couple’s wedding four years ago and noticing Rani’s family.
Patel said he spoke with Rani’s husband about five months ago and was unaware that he was having problems with Chander.
“He was happy with the way things were going,” Patel said. [Chicago Tribune]
But (the alleged motive) made little sense to Sandeep Kaur, who was good friends with Rani and her husband. Kaur said Tuesday that before Rani got married in 2002 at a Chicago area Hindu temple, Chander called the prospective groom’s parents in India to offer his approval for the union. Kaur said she thought Rani and her husband came from the same elite Indian caste. In Hindu Indian culture, it’s common for families to seek to match a child with someone of the same caste or social order, experts say. [Sun Times]
Chander’s sister also disputed the caste angle:
Kamla Devi told WBBM-AM that her brother is innocent. She said that relatives approved of the marriage and that the caste system was not a consideration for her family in India, nor is it a consideration now in the United States.
“There was no family problem. There was nothing going on. Absolutely nothing,” Devi said.
Devi told the radio station that the family is from Chandigarh in northern India. [CNN]
If “absolutely nothing” was wrong, why did he burn them to death? And how cold is this?
After the fire was started, Chander told police that he went back to his apartment across the street and placed the remaining gasoline in a trash bin. He did not report the fire, nor did he call his daughter to make sure she and her family were safe, Milan said. [Chicago Tribune]
How they found him:
Milan said a gas station attendant identified Chander in a lineup, and that officers recovered the plastic pharmaceutical jug that held the gas and had a prescription label with Chander’s name on it.
About two hours before the blaze, Chander purchased gasoline from a Citgo station less than a mile away, prosecutors said. Chander gave the attendant $5 but only filled up $3.24 in gas before leaving the station with the container and walking down the street, said Terrill Starks, the station attendant.
“That’s when I thought there was something suspicious about him,” Starks said. “Why would he forget his change?” [Chicago Tribune]
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