These 'detectives of the dark' investigate the ‘paranormal’

A woman in a white sari walks by your window at midnight, there’s somebody whispering as you are half asleep, the sound of feet on the stairs or on the terrace, and the objects displaced - acts that generate fear, are often associated with places termed ‘haunted’. For eleven years now, Devraj Sanyal and his team have been trying to burst fake notions, while he believes in the possibility of the existence of the ‘paranormal’.

Detectives of Supernatural, in common parlance the ‘ghost hunters’, claim to have investigated over 200 cases, and began with Suvojyoti Roy Chowdhury, a professor, and Devraj. To the team, what’s unexplainable in the scientific framework could constitute paranormal. “It’s, however, not like that every phenomenon or activity which we cannot understand has a paranormal or supernatural significance,” says Devraj.

He studied mass communication and is into business. Besides Devraj, his wife Ishita Das Sanyal, who has studied commerce; Anindam Ghosal, an IT professional, and Ujjal Gupta, a sports medicine consultant, are also part of the team. The paranormal investigation is more out of curiosity than for livelihood.

There have been cases where the group reached a conclusion, like the investigation of an old building, considered ‘haunted’. “A section of persons who worked in the building experienced uneasiness. The discomfort was more on the top floor, especially at night. We found that there was a mobile phone tower, a transmitter in the vicinity, and many computers in the building. We concluded it was a radiation that affected people mentally, and there was nothing that could be considered paranormal an activity,” says Ishita.

Some situations, however, have remained unexplained, and the team has no answer for what they have experienced personally. The Dow Hill, in Kurseong, Darjeeling district of West Bengal, is one such place that left the team baffled. “I am not forcing anyone to believe anything. I am just sharing what we experienced. We had gone there for a documentary shoot. At the location, we experienced weird things that have remained unexplained till day, like a jacket went missing and was discovered the day later on a tree-top,” recalls Devraj. What added to the mystery was the fact that none of the four vehicles took a start, when the team wanted to leave the scene.

Anindam has experienced occurrences that remain unexplained. An old flat he rented had a peculiar series of events - regular crow caws at midnight, automatic flushing in the bathroom, and sounds of knocking. Ujjawal too claims to have experienced unexplained phenomena. The investigation involves an electromagnetic field detector, sound recorder, motion sensor, laser grid, and thermometers.

Worldwide, people continue to classify unexplained activities as paranormal. The mainstream science, however, refuses to acknowledge. “I don’t see the paranormal as science. It has not been accepted. Practitioners often depend on electromagnetic waves and devices. Such approaches haven’t proved anything,” says Manas Pratim Das, a fellow of the West Bengal Academy of Science and Technology.

Despite having to counter mainstream science propagators who write off the paranormal, the ‘ghost hunters’ like Devraj and team continue to explore deeper, undeterred.