📣 For more lifestyle news, click here to join our WhatsApp Channel and also follow us on Instagram
© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
For many, private investigation seems like something out of a movie: trench coats, fake moustaches, and whispered phone calls. But for Tanya Puri, the face of Delhi-based agency Lady Detectives India, and her team, the reality is raw and more emotional.
She recalls the early influence of her father, Baldev Puri, a respected private investigator and deputy general secretary of the Association of Private Detectives and Investigators (APDI). “He told us stories that still sit in my mind,” she told actor Kunal Jaisingh in a conversation on his YouTube channel. “When I entered the industry, I think he was more afraid than I was — that I might have to face what he did.”
Thankfully, she hasn’t had to face the worst of it, yet. But one experience still stands out. “Someone cornered me and said, ‘Aurat ho apne boundaries mein raho’,” Puri revealed. “For my father, that was tough to process. But both of us, we’re warriors,” she says. “And we know exactly why we’re in this industry: to bring out the truth. That truth matters.”
Her day starts not with coffee, but with calls, lots of them. “You wouldn’t believe it, but I get about 15 to 20 calls a day,” she said. These are often from worried clients, most seeking help with pre-marital background checks or suspicions in long-distance or online relationships. On a good day, five cases may convert.
Her team includes researchers and field agents who verify information across three or four different sources. They don’t leave any stone unturned. “We don’t go by just one angle. Every subject — that’s what we call the person being investigated — is analysed in full detail.”
Clients can range from locals walking into their office to NRIs connecting over Zoom. The spike in digital relationships and long-distance dating has created a need for professional verification, something traditional family networks no longer manage, Puri explained.
One particularly unforgettable case came from a woman in New Zealand. She’d met a man on a dating app and entered into a serious relationship. But things didn’t add up. He was constantly flying to India, citing weddings and family emergencies. His calls became oddly timed, and he refused video chats during his trips.
Eventually, she began her own digging and suspected he had a family in India, perhaps even a wife and child. But she wasn’t sure. Then came the shocker. The man returned to New Zealand, with his wife and child, and continued seeing both women, juggling two lives without either knowing about the other.
Even worse, his dating app profile remained active. So the client, determined to find the truth, created a fake profile, matched with him, and engaged him in conversation. He took the bait. “He was sending texts, trying to get intimate. And all this while his wife had no idea,” the investigator revealed. The deception eventually unravelled, destroying both relationships and leaving the man alone.
Another unsettling case involved a man whose wife suspected him of cheating. He kept visiting a village house every evening. The team began a covert surveillance operation, posing as vegetable vendors in the neighbourhood.
What they found was deeply disturbing. The man — in his 50s — was romantically involved with his 60-year-old house help. But the twist came when they learned he was also involved with the house help’s daughter, a woman in her late 20s. “He took her to a hotel twice, told his wife he was just dropping her somewhere,” she said. “But we caught them at the hotel. It was shocking.”
Despite how it looks from the outside, this investigator lives a life much like everyone else, she said. “People think we’re always on our gadgets and in disguises,” Puri explained. “But no, we’re also just people. We spend time with family, go grocery shopping, and maybe solve a few cases along the way.”
