Homosexuals are soft targets
Soni Sangwan
New Delhi


Pushkin Chandra’s murder may have put the spotlight on the grave security risk that the gay community faces, but it was a crime just waiting to happen.

Gay activists have been concerned about the increasing number of gay and even straight men entering the community with criminal intent.

“Last year we had even approached the police to help a guy from Simla who was being blackmailed. Someone had managed to procure some pictures of him and was blackmailing him.We lodged an FIR and the police was able to  track the blackmailer down from the phone calls and he was arrested,” says Sunny, a social worker with Development Advocacy and Research Trust (DART).

The blackmailer turned out to be a petty pick-pocket looking for an easy buck.


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Double murder outs Delhi’s gay culture
Archis Mohan/Anant Vijay Kala
New Delhi,


In a double homicide that threatens to “out” Delhi’s upmarket homosexual culture, two men, one naked and the other semi-nude, were found murdered in South Delhi’s posh Anand Lok on Saturday morning.

One of the victims was Pushkin Chandra, a 38-year-old project development officer with USAID who lived in the outhouse and whose father is a retired IAS officer. He was found in his bathroom, naked, his hands and legs tied and his throat slit. He’d been stabbed in his neck and abdomen.

The other was Vishal, in his 20s, found on the bed in his bermudas and a vest, his hands and legs tied and throat slit.

That’s not all. The police found hundreds of photos of naked men in homosexual acts as well as porn VCDs in the bedroom. Some photos show men in women’s clothing, and some even have names written on them. It isn’t clear if the killers were looking for specific pictures, but the polaroid camera used is missing. Also gone is Pushkin’s Opel Corsa.