Ghosts In An Indian Courthouse? New Delhi Police, Court Say Video Shows ‘Resident Spirit’ At Work

Maybe it’s a computer virus. Maybe it’s faulty wiring. But maybe it’s a ghost. At least that’s what a few court workers and police are saying about some spooky events that they say are a “resident spirit” in one New Delhi courthouse. And they say they’ve got the video to prove it.

Just in time for Halloween, the Washington Post carried a report out of New Delhi that a courthouse in the eastern part of the city that allegedly had a supernatural visitor going bump in the night. Over the past year, employees at the Karkardooma District Court have been noticing some odd happenings in the complex.

Employees at the court say that the past year has seen books disappearing, computers and lights flickering on and off by themselves, and strange noises night and day. The Shahdara Bar Association eventually decided to install closed circuit cameras in order to check it out.

“We were primarily concerned because we thought somebody was stealing books,” Raman Sharma, joint secretary of the Shadara Bar Association, told the Post.

What they found when they checked the video is definitely spooky, with what appears to be strange, floating wisps appearing from nowhere and computer screens seemingly turning themselves on and off. Whether or not the video shows ghosts, though, likely depends on whether you’re a skeptic or not.

Likely to the dismay of many a skeptic, the local police are taking the case relatively seriously and investigating it. Earlier this year, police told the Post that they “entertain all complaints, be it against zombies or werewolves,” and they’re treating the New Delhi court ghost no differently.

Ghost and apparition sitings are quite common around the globe, and it’s a fairly common occurrence to catch spooky happenings on film, but India in general and New Delhi in particular are special cases.

New Delhi is sometimes called the “city of jinns,” in reference to the genies that some say dwell in the Indian capital’s graveyards and shrines. Some lament the fact that India seems to be a nation with one foot in the modern world and the other firmly rooted in the arcane past.

“We’ve got a country with a 16th-century mindset superimposed on the 21st century,” said the president of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations. “People will use their mobile phones to view ghosts, and we will do a puja [prayer ritual] before sending a spacecraft to Mars.”

“It was just a virus,” one lawyer said while sitting in the same room shown in the video. Not many people use the room nowadays, but whether that is because of the “resident spirit” or because the internet isn’t working is up for debate.

Still others say that the video definitely shows a ghost or some other spirit at work when the lights go down.

“I was fully conscious,” Sharma said of his encounter with the spooky court dweller. “I’m not a drug addict, I’m a lawyer. I believe something is happening here. We should talk about it.”

For now, the courthouse visitor in the city of jinns will be left undisturbed. In a land where holy men levitate and religious statues weep, though, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see this New Delhi courtroom become the scene of an exorcism if the ghost rears its head again.