Amazon Prime Video’s ‘Raakh’, starring Ali Fazal and Sonali Bendre, which premiered on June 12 has the country revisiting the infamous 1978 horror of Ranga and Billa. Nearly five decades after the infamous kidnapping and murders of two children — Geeta and Sanjay Chopra — this web series has now brought one of the most brutal killings in India’s history to the fore again.Children of an Indian Navy Captain, Geeta (16) and Sanjay (14) lived at the Officers’ Enclave at Dhaula Kuan, New Delhi. Geeta was a second-year commerce student at Jesus and Mary College and Sanjay studied at Modern School.On a rainy August 26, 1978, the siblings left home at 6.15 PM to participate in a youth programme ‘Yuv Vani’ at 8 PM at All India Radio in the evening… but they never arrived on the sets.ALSO READ | Ranga and Billa kidnapped Bobby Deol’s friend, cops warned Dharmendra he could be next: ‘I wasn’t allowed to leave home’At 8 PM, when Captain Madan Mohan Chopra and his wife turned on the radio, they were surprised to hear the voice of another girl. Assuming that they were tuned in to the wrong station or programme, the couple tried other stations, but in vain.Then Captain Chopra took his scooter and reached the AIR studio where the children were supposed to wait. However, he couldn’t find them there. He inquired at the Willingdon Hospital (now Dr. Ram Mahohar Lohia Hospital) and other places, including Parliament Street Police Station. Inquiries with the children’s friends and their relatives yielded no result either. Realising something was really wrong, Captain Chopra called the Police Control Room at 10.15 PM to report that his kids were missing.What happened to Geeta Chopra and Sanjay Chopra?That evening, Kuljeet Singh, alias Ranga, and Jasbir Singh, alias Billa, were cruising Delhi’s roads in a car (number HRK 8930). They had only one intention: kidnap children, demand ransom, and kill if anything went wrong. And things went very wrong, very quickly.Story continues below this adTheir eyes fell on the Chopra siblings on their way to the AIR office.Ranga and Billa offered Geeta and Sanjay a lift in their car. Little did the kids know that they were stepping into a trap by the two.The final order by the Supreme Court, upholding the sentencing of Ranga and Billa, detailed the kidnapping as: “The accused had loosened the handles of the doors of the car so that they should fall down when the children, after getting into the car, close the doors behind them. By this process it was ensured that the children would get into a trap like helpless mice.”When Ranga and Billa discovered their captives were the children of a naval officer, they panicked. Fearing a police crackdown, they decided to kill the siblings.Story continues below this adALSO READ | Raakh review: Ali Fazal thriller takes the horrific Billa-Ranga case, turns it into fictionHowever, the children were not ones to submit easily. They fought back. The struggle was seen and reported by multiple witnesses. One of the witnesses even chased the car, inside which the children were being tortured. However, he lost the chase. He then reported the incident to the Rajinder Nagar Police Station around 6.45 PM, but it took the cops one hour to take the first action of relaying the report to the Control Room. The Delhi High Court during the trial said: “Before parting with this case we are constrained to observe that the lives of the two children could have been saved if the police had acted promptly.”Sanjay and Geeta were taken to a secluded area on the outskirts of Delhi, where they were subjected to unimaginable cruelty and murdered. The siblings fought back so fiercely that Billa had to go to a hospital to get stitches afterwards. The Supreme Court, during the hearing of Ranga Billa’s appeal on April 21, 1981, remarked: “The impediments here where the uncommon courage of the brave little children who did not make an abject surrender to their destiny and the stark fact which emerged during their molestation that their father was a mere government servant whose salary was too small to permit the payment of a handsome ransom.”The Indian Express report from the day read: “Geeta Chopra, 17, and her brother Sanjay, 15, who were kidnapped near their house in Dhaula Kuan Service Officers enclave, were found murdered in the bushes along the Upper Ridge Road early morning. Both bodies bore multiple stab wounds and were in a state of decomposition. The postmortem report says that the deaths were due to injuries inflicted by a sharp-edged weapon. The time of death has been fixed between 6.15 pm and midnight on Saturday night.”Story continues below this ad The Indian Express report on January 27, 1982.Injuries on the victims’ bodiesBilla had sustained a cut on his head during the scuffle in the car. Incidentally, he went to Willingdon Hospital, and got treated under a fake name. However, after he was caught, the medical report of this cut was later matched with Billa to ascertain his lies and used as evidence in the trial. His fingerprints on the X-ray slip were also matched.The children were initially injured during the scuffle and later killed near Upper Ridge Road. Their bodies had multiple cuts and fractures.First, Sanjay was taken out of the car and made to sit on the road some distance away from the car, in which his sister was locked. He was then hacked to death by the accused. Sanjay’s body bore 21 injuries.Ranga’s submission recorded in the Delhi High Court order read: “I lifted the sword and aimed to hit. The boy was shivering and as such the sword-blow hit on the left arm. The boy started raising an alarm to the effect, “Mat Maro, Mat Maro, Kyon Martey Ho” (The boy raised an alarm to the effect, “Do not kill, Do not kill and why do you kill me”). Billa snatched away the sword from my hand and addressing me as ‘Behande Khasman’ stated that neither I knew anything to do nor I was capable of doing any thing. Saying this he started killing the boy. He went on striking wherever he could. He made the boy bleeding profusely. For 10 minutes Billa continued to kill the boy.Story continues below this ad The Indian Express report on October 22, 1978.The girl was allegedly sexually assaulted as per the statements of the convicts. However, this could not be proved in the forensic reports. While Ranga claimed that Billa killed Geeta after some time, Billa blamed his partner for the crime. “At about 9.30 P.M. Sanjay and Geeta were killed in the jungle of Upper Ridge Road at a place between Budha Jayanti Park and Shankar Road Upper Ridge Road roundabout,” the order document read.The bodies were found on August 26, 1978. Police surgeon Dr Bharat Singh, who conducted the autopsy of Geeta, said in court: “Since the body was in a state of advanced decomposition, maggots were crawling on the body. Hair were catching layers of chin have peeled off. Rectum, vagina were swelling and protruding out due to decomposition. It is not possible to give definite opinion whether sexual act was committed on the deceased or not.”The historic Ranga-Billa trialThe discovery of the murders had the public fuming. It had far-reaching consequences, spilling onto the next elections as well. The Indian Express report on August 31, 1978.Ranga and Billa evaded arrest for a few weeks. However, they were caught boarding a Kalka Mail coach meant for army personnel on September 8, 1978.Story continues below this adThey were convicted by the Delhi High Court on November 16, 1979, on charges including murder, common intention, kidnapping, kidnapping with unlawful confinement, and kidnapping a woman with intention of sexual intercourse.The court order read: “Immediately after killing Sanjay. the appellants had no compunction in raping Sanjay’s helpless sister by stripping her naked. After satisfying their beastly lust, they killed her and throw her body in the bushes. Evidently the appellants had a fiendish sadistic pleasure in committing the crime.” Sunday Standard (Sunday Indian Express) report on April 8, 1979.Ranga and Billa appealed to the Supreme Court, which upheld the conviction in 1981. The Supreme Court’s language in the judgment was direct: “Their inhumanity defies all belief and description… The survival of an orderly society demands the extinction of the life of persons like Ranga and Billa who are a menace to social order and security. They are professional murderers and deserve no sympathy even in terms of the evolving standards of decency of a maturing society. We, therefore, vacate the stay orders in regard to the execution of the death sentence imposed on the petitioner and once again uphold the death sentence imposed upon him. We hope that the President will dispose of the mercy petition stated to have been filed by the petitioner as expeditiously as he finds his convenience.”Subsequently, the Ranga and Billa’s mercy petitions were rejected by then President Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, and they were hanged to death on January 31, 1982. The case went on to become a defining reference point for India’s “rarest of rare” doctrine in capital punishment. Ranga and Billa were hanged at Tihar Jail, New Delhi, on January 31, 1982.Story continues below this adVictims get Kirti ChakraThe victims were posthumously awarded the Kirti Chakra. The Sanjay Chopra Award and the Geeta Chopra Award were later instituted for bravery by children under the age of 16 — both given annually along with the National Bravery Award.The case received intensive media coverage, with the then-Prime Minister Morarji Desai taking personal interest in solving it. It also changed Delhi as people knew it.