The Sherlock of Kasur

No cattle goes unfound, no red herrings can befool when Najja’s on the case to ferret out the facts

LAHORE:

Frail but fast, calm but clever— seventy-year old Nazeer Muhammad Najja’s keen eyes have been trailing crime for decades in his small town of Sarai Mughal in district Kasur. The local detective who especialises in tracing footprints, is said to have an 80 per cent accuracy with his cases.

In his 20 years of working as a private investigator, Najja has solved countless mysteries and recovered hundreds of stolen cattle for his community.

With little access to security and surveillance in his rural neighbourhood, locals believe the private-eye can sniff crime back to its origin better than most authorities.

“I learned everything in the get-go. Every time there would be any reports of theft of any kind in my area, I would show up at the crime scene and try to gather as much as I could. Eventually, I taught myself to trace footprints, which became my greatest asset in staying on the heels of crime,” told Najja.

Today, the elderly investigator is summoned to solve crimes and recover stolen items across district Kasur.

Be it meadows or marshlands, his expertise in following footsteps have allowed him to track criminals back to their dens across many terrains.

“Footprints are the most important of clues. They can tell a lot more about the criminal than the size of their shoes. Observing patterns like the length of the print, its width, its pressure, its direction and the distance from one foot to another, can help ascertain the criminal’s weight and gender,” explained Najja.

According to area locals, the private-eye is known have footprints of the town’s most notorious criminals etched into his memory. “In case of a familiar footprint, Najja can almost immediately pin-point the criminal after examining it from all angles,” told a town resident.

While tracing footprints is an easy identifier for the elderly detective, it is also one of the most sensitive. “Weather conditions like rains and dust storms can easily ruin footprints. Many criminals will also try to erase their marks, but often leave other clues in the process. So it’s important to reach the crime scene almost immediately to increase the chances of tracking down the criminal,” the detective shared.

Talking about his profession, Najja said that he can local authorities in tracing down dangerous criminal in his area. “There was once a detective who tracked a harrowing child sexual abuse case in Chunian and brought the culprit to justice. I think my services come handy in tracing criminals in cases like the Lahore Motorway rape incident, which still remains unsolved,” he asserted.

The investigator said that he does not pre-determine the cost of his service and usually accepts whatever it is that the plaintiffs offer. “Although many a times, there’d be culprits or people from their association who’d offer me huge bribes to mislead a plaintiff, but as a professional I do not accept such offers.”

Harking back to an incident, Najja told that he was once offered Rs3,000 as bribe to mislead a pack of sniffer hounds which had been called to assist the case.

“They told me to take the hounds to any innocent man’s doorstep and let him take the fall but I refused right way,” he recalled.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, Botha Sabir a local legal expert said that 80 per cent of Najja’s estimates have so far proved to be accurate in digging out criminals.

“Whenever a plaintiff comes to me to register a case, I also include Najja’s opinion on the matter in the petition.

The nature of the investigator’s profession means that he always has some enemies on his own tail, so it’s important he takes of his safety too,” Sabir expressed.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 7^th, 2020.