Brutal (2 page)

S
omething woke Prakash Sinha up
. He felt dizzy, his eyes burning as he tried to part his eyelids. He looked at the wall clock and groaned.
8:25 AM. Damn. Yet another sleepless night.
He had slept only for 15 minutes. That was the best he had slept in two weeks.

He lifted his five-foot-ten body from the bed and stood up, immediately greeted by a pinching sensation in his right knee. Yeah, good morning to you too, he sneered, stretching his leg. The pain had been bothering him since the last few days, stinging often when he got up or sat down. It was one of the ‘gifts’ from his last assignment. He stroked his fingers over his knee and noticed a tiny metal splinter protruding from his kneecap.
Another Goddamn piece of shrapnel. Not today!

Today was a big day. He couldn’t allow it to go wrong. He was a Special Correspondent at Globe News, getting back into the field after three weeks of leave, a period he had spent in severe depression and trauma. His face looked wan, eyes bloodshot with dark circles under them. The salt-and-pepper hair he prided himself on appeared more salty than peppery. Yesterday, while looking at the mirror, he had remarked that he looked sixty. He was only thirty-five.

His ordeal began one month ago, when at the peak of a glorious career, he took up an assignment to cover a story in Banka. It was a Naxalite hotbed and a place notorious for the bloody battle between the government and the rebels. He had taken a team of cameraman Ojas Patel and a local freelancer with him. Both of them had died in the very first week. He woke up in an ICU, his body full of shrapnel, enough to give him a lifetime of suffering.

The doctors were able to remove a few major chunks of metal from his neck, thighs and back. But they had to leave untouched the minor fragments embedded deep inside his body. He was discharged in a week – body fragile, mind tormented.

Night after night, he would wake up with a splitting headache and spasms coursing through his body. Some days, he would hear explosions and then squeeze his ears with hands. Nightmares made him spend nights under his bed in terror. He tried sleeping pills; even drinking, praying for an inebriated slumber which never came. It didn’t take him long to realize that he was lying in a cemetery surrounded by graves. One belonged to his career. One to his happiness. And one to his life. All buried for good.

If someone had told him that he would soon leave the gloomy walls of his New Delhi apartment and fly to Allahabad to cover a story known as the ‘Nitin Tomar case’, he wouldn’t have believed him. But he was well on his way to do it. And it was made possible by Seema Sharma, a close friend who was also an ace journalist with the Century News channel. She kept visiting him, often against his wishes, even on days he closed himself up in his room sulking in darkness. She was the only one who could persuade him to come out of his shell and get back into the field. Begin with an easy case, she said.

He had begun to hate journalism, maybe even fear it. But he also badly wanted things to get back to where they were a month ago. So, he agreed to her suggestion, just to give himself one desperate shot at redemption. He knew nothing about Nitin Tomar or the crime he committed. He was going as a blank slate, unprepared, like a rookie. Beginning his career again, like he did twelve years ago.

He picked up the mobile phone from the bedside coffee table. There was a message from Seema.
This must have woken me up.
He read it. ‘You are coming to the court, right? Will kill you if I don’t see you at 11:30 AM. He smiled and nodded in agreement. There was one more message. It was from Ritesh Pandey, his boss, the editor for crime beat at Globe News. It said: ‘Best of luck. Be the stubborn bastard again that we all knew.’

He had a quick bath, dressed formally and then went over to the restaurant area of his hotel for a breakfast. It was a long time since he had eaten in public.

He was halfway through his breakfast when he saw a short, stout man with a balding head enter the restaurant.
Dilip More.
This man was his old companion and cameraman. Like him, Dilip also lived in New Delhi, but they hardly got to see each other nowadays.

Prakash smiled and called out his name.

Dilip looked back, smiling. “So, the lion is back into the game!” he said, before hugging him. It was a long hug. From a colleague who was now almost a brother.

“How is the great Dilip More assigned to such a low profile case?”

“Ritesh
Sirji
called me up. He said you are going to cover the Nitin Tomar case at Allahabad. That was enough for me to…”

“So you have come to babysit me?” Prakash muttered.

“Now c’mon
bhai
, everybody can do with some help,” Dilip said, settling into a chair across from him. “Look at yourself. You look fucking tired.”

“I am unable to sleep nowadays.”

“I can understand what you’ve gone through,” he said. “Dealing with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is tough. Happened to me also after covering the Godhra riots. But…”

“I shouldn’t have done the Banka story,” Prakash said, avoiding Dilip’s eyes. “We all knew how dangerous it was.” His voice was almost a whisper.

“You are a journalist. And one of the best I know,” Dilip said. “You of all people can understand that things sometimes go horribly wrong in the field. Doing a story in the Naxalite belt is a dreadful affair. Believe me – most of the big-shot journos would give it a pass. But you still managed it somehow.”

“I got two of my colleagues killed, Dilip. That’s how I MANAGED it,” Prakash said with anger, looking into his eyes. “Ojas Patel is dead. And his wife...”

“No one blames you, Prakash. Whatever happened was sad. I mean it. But you cannot live with the pain. You have to move on.”

Prakash nodded slowly, realizing he was losing it again.
Don’t.

“Now no more living in the past! You heard me? No more sad smileys,” Dilip said and got up from his chair. “Let’s go. We have a new story to cover. Just like old times.” He tugged at his friend’s arm, making him stand.

“Hmmm. But I haven’t done any homework on this case,” Prakash said with a sheepish grin.

“Don’t worry. It’s an open and shut case. They don’t come easier than this.” Dilip winked. “Perfect way for you to get back into action.”

Prakash nodded. He thanked Ritesh silently for teaming him up with Dilip.

He said, “Why don’t you brief me about this case?”

“That’s like my old boy!” Dilip said, with a broad smile. “Let’s get seated in our van first. I will tell you the whole story on the way. A police van carrying Nitin Tomar has already started for the court.”

T
here was
an unusual rush of people outside the Court on this hot summer day. The yard outside the imposing structure was swarming with hordes of youths, school children and other protestors. Two police rapid action buses and a fire tender stood aligned with the compound wall to control any aggression from the mob. A perimeter of ten meters in front of the court entrance was created by armoured police force carrying
lathis
and tear gas canisters.

The air pulsated with anger. The entire place was echoing with vociferous chants of ‘Hang the killers of humanity’ and ‘Enough crimes against women and children’. College youth and schoolchildren who had skipped their classes today were carrying banners with messages like ‘Death penalty is justice’ and ‘Crime against women and Children – Tolerate no more’.

The OB van of Globe News was caught in the heavy crowd. The driver shook his head with astonishment as he tried to manoeuvre through. “Forget about parking. There is no place to stand here,” he said. “And I can see the early signs of violence,” he added, pointing at a group of youths holding an effigy of Nitin Tomar. They were carrying the flags of a political party.

“Park here,” Dilip said, indicating a gap in the long lines of vehicles.

The driver frowned and said, “Won’t it be too far for you guys? It’s almost two hundred meters from the court gate.”

“It’s OK,” Dilip said with a shrug. “We will walk from here. If the crowd turns violent, at least our van will be safe.”

Prakash got down from the van. He held a microphone in his hand. Dilip followed him, carrying a bulky TV camera over his shoulder.

The heat outside made Prakash wince. More than the heat, it was the realization that he was back in the job he had started dreading. Beads of perspiration formed over his forehead. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

It took a few moments for him to absorb everything that was happening around – the tense atmosphere, the angry protestors and the wary policemen. It was not an ordinary scene. Not every day did people turn up in such large numbers for a hearing. It might have been a simple case, but it was surely one of the most anticipated ones in the country today.

The incident, a crime of shocking brutality, had occurred two months ago at the well-known Geetanjali Public School in Allahabad. That day, Nitin Tomar, a science teacher and now a figure hated far and wide across the country, massacred eleven school children in cold blood using a kitchen knife. Four more children were left maimed for life.

Most reports connected Nitin’s actions to his depression, from a painful divorce a few months ago. He was furious after his wife won custody of their daughter.

The surprising element in this case was that he seemed to be perfectly alright a few hours before the crime. He was seen smiling and chatting with his fellow teachers in the school canteen. Nobody knew what transpired afterwards, which made him sneak in a sharp knife from the canteen kitchen and proceed towards Class IV-C. He entered the class to moans and protests from the little students telling him that his class was still half an hour away. He ignored them, closing the door and bolting all the latches tight. Before the children could grasp what was going on, Nitin took out his knife and stabbed two girls from the first desk. Aghast, a couple of kids ran towards the door. But, he cut them off before they could unlock it and butchered them like lambs. The remaining kids tried everything from praying and yelling to hiding behind their desks, but nothing was sufficient to stop this animal. Five minutes was what it took for the school security team to break the door and get in. In those five terrible minutes, he stabbed about nineteen students – some dying on the spot, some dying later in hospital. Only a few survived.

Eyewitnesses said that Nitin’s eyes looked scary and full of nightmarish rage. Later on, he became violent even with his inmates in the police lock-up. Hard to control like a rabid pit bull, he injured five inmates and four police constables when they tried to tame him. That night, his inmates beat him up with a vengeance, sending him into a coma. He was in the hospital for about three weeks, oblivious to the fact that the whole country was baying for his blood. The judiciary began the proceedings against him only when he was released from the hospital a couple of weeks later.

The police had a pretty straightforward case against Nitin Tomar. There was no way he could escape from the charges of manslaughter, attempt to murder and carrying a weapon with the intention of harm. The prosecution had even lined up a battery of special experts to thwart any attempts at an insanity plea. They wanted a noose around the sociopath’s neck, at any cost.

As Prakash waded through the sea of protestors, he could empathize with their cause. A teacher as a demon was the last thing society wanted. Nitin Tomar deserved to be purged.

He, followed by Dilip, finally reached the crowd of journalists huddled up beside the entry gate of the compound. He felt somewhat better getting immersed in his community. Good or bad, he didn’t know, but this was his world.

He looked around, but felt awkward due to the glances other journalists cast at him. Some were surprised, some sympathetic and some damn serious, as if thanking God that they were not in his place. Just ignore them, he muttered to himself.

His face brightened when he saw a few known faces he encountered in almost every assignment. The most familiar face among them was of a fair, beautiful woman with long wavy hair. She was wearing a short, Nehru-collared
kurta
over jeans trousers.
Seema Sharma.
She came towards him as soon as their eyes met.

“So happy to have you back,” she said with a big smile. “For once, I thought I would never see you in the media again.”

Prakash grinned. “I am still recovering.”

“You will. You will,” she said, squeezing his palm gently. “You’ve been one hell of a fighter throughout your life… and a pretty big prick as a competitor.”

He laughed. The heaviness in his mind was lifting. Seema always made him feel like that.

He had a thing for Seema since their days together at Globe News ten years ago. She was the quintessential reporter who had got a gift of the gab as well as an unparalleled courage – talents that propelled her to great heights in her career. She would often venture out into unknown territories all alone for news stories and return unscathed. Her good looks didn’t hurt either. She was tall, had a bright, confident-looking face and a charming nature, which made her a ‘natural’ in the TV news business. She was soon spotted by the best in the business. She chose the opportunity to work with Century News because it was owned by the illustrious business
Moghul
Anwar Shah, whom she used to admire a lot.

Prakash was never sure how Seema felt about him. He was a guy with average looks, notwithstanding his fancy hair, which often appealed to the opposite sex. But barring the last few weeks, he knew he looked much better nowadays in his post-thirties than he ever looked in his life.

Still, he didn’t expect this relationship to grow beyond friendship. Seema was married. To be more correct, she was widowed. She had lost her husband a few years ago in a fog-related car accident. Though she was not in the car, invisible wounds from that incident probably haunted her till now. He recalled how she had gone into acute depression and cut herself off from the world after the tragedy. He was glad he could emotionally support her during her dark days.
Just like she did in mine.

“So, how is Vidisha?” he asked her. Vidisha was her six year old daughter.

“She’s good. Learning to sing nowadays.”

“Like mother, like daughter,” Prakash teased. “What happened to your singing Seema? You also used to be a great singer.”

“That was years ago. I swear you’ll hate my voice today,” she said with a forced smile. “Dad wanted me to become a journalist. So I became one.”

Prakash perceived a hint of pain in her voice. “What do you want Vidisha to become?”

“A singer maybe, who knows. She’ll tell me one day.”

“Not a journalist?” Prakash asked with a smile.

Seema shook her head with a smile and said, “It’s a tough life.”

“Tell me about it,” Prakash replied with a wink.

The noise level of the crowd surged up by a few decibels, catching their attention. A police convoy had just entered through the gates.

“So, it begins,” Seema said and rushed towards her cameraman.

Prakash was surprised to see the security arrangements used to bring in Nitin Tomar. The convoy comprised of three vehicles, the first and the last of which were police jeeps. The middle one was a minibus with mesh grills in place of windows.
This jerk is being brought in like a national threat!

As soon as the convoy stopped inside the court premises, a group of reserve policemen ran towards it to create a perimeter between them and the angry crowd. Rapid action force was on high alert. The fire-brigade started readying its water cannon.

Every reporter in the huddle was now rushing towards the convoy. Prakash felt the journalist inside him wake up. “Let’s go,” he said to Dilip and got into the crowd surrounding the mini-bus.

After a few moments of jostling and elbowing with spectators and other reporters, Prakash and Dilip managed to secure a spot about ten feet from the bus.

Prakash concentrated hard on the window mesh to get a glimpse of the people sitting inside. It was all dark. “Can you see Nitin?” he asked Dilip, who was busy focusing his camera.

“I can see a person sitting with a black-mask covering his head till the throat. That must be him,” Dilip said, looking at his camera screen. He was almost standing on his toes.

“Shit! I wanted to take a look at the man’s face,” Prakash grumbled. “You sure he looks human?”

“Only a human being is capable of such brutality,” Dilip replied with a smile. “He’s coming out,” he added, alerting Prakash.

Prakash could feel a tense murmur in the crowd as Nitin Tomar came out of the mini-bus. His hands were cuffed behind his back and as Dilip had mentioned, his head masked with black cloth.

When the police started taking him towards the court, a group of youths started shouting ‘Death to Nitin! Death to Nitin!’ In a few seconds, the whole crowd joined in, their words echoing with rage.

Prakash sensed that the crowd was drifting towards Nitin. He felt an imminent danger. Just one stone pelted by somebody from the crowd would have resulted in the mob going berserk.

“Let’s move away from this crowd,” he whispered to Dilip. “I am not getting good vibes about this.”

Dilip nodded and they started moving backwards, away from the direction the crowd was drifting. His eyes never strayed from the camera as they walked.

“Look at that,” Prakash screamed, pointing towards a man who burst out of the crowd like a piece of popcorn and charged at Nitin. Three more people did the same. The policemen on the perimeter lashed out at the aggressors with their sticks. It was all mayhem in a few seconds, with people running helter-skelter.

A bunch of policemen started moving Nitin at a rapid pace. They were running towards the court entrance, under the flimsy protection of the police perimeter.

It was the first time Prakash paid attention to the massive, white-coloured court building. It went up five floors. Being newly constructed, its outer walls were glowing in the sun like white-hot sheets of iron. He was standing about twenty meters from the building. From his place, the structure gave him the feel of a multi-level parking lot, with staircases crisscrossing the façade and open corridors running parallel on every floor.

“So, that’s it,” Dilip muttered, relieving his shoulder of the heavy camera. “He’s gone and we are done.”

“How good is your footage?” Prakash asked, drumming his fingers over the camera.

“Not good at all. Thanks to the unruly crowd, I only have a hazy and shaky shot of Nitin getting inside the court building.”

“No close-ups?”

“Nope.” Dilip shook his head. “I guess we will have to make do by interviewing a few protestors,” he said. “Most of the reporters are doing the same.”

Prakash thought for a minute. He wanted to do something better than chasing protestors for sound bites. He turned his eyes towards the court building, looking at people walking on the open corridors. He had an idea.

“Do you know which floor will the hearing take place?” he asked Dilip.

“Second floor, I think.”

“So Nitin will soon walk across the second floor corridor. Won’t he?”

“Only if they use the stairs and not a lift.”

“There are at least ten armed policemen accompanying Nitin. I doubt they would suffocate themselves in a lift.”

“So what do you want me to do? Record while Nitin walks across the corridor?”

“Yes. Do you remember the landmark photograph of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre?

Dilip frowned. “I…. think I know. The photo showed a Palestinian terrorist wearing a black mask and looking down from the balcony, isn’t it? It was a scary image.”

“Yes! How about taking such a photo?”

Dilip pondered over his point for a moment and then said, “Even if you’re wrong and Nitin doesn’t walk across the corridor, there’s no harm in trying.” He raised the camera up his shoulder again. “We will have to move to the back to get a full view of the second floor.”

Prakash followed him as he walked backwards. They stopped at a point about 50 meters away from the building.

It had been a couple of minutes since Nitin and his captors had entered the court building. Prakash had a hunch that they would cross the corridor on the second floor in a few moments.

“Ready!” Prakash whispered. “They should be on your screen in seconds.”

After a few tense moments of waiting, Dilip raved, “We got our man! ... Buddy, you are getting back your old form.”

But Prakash still had to wait for five seconds or so before he could see Nitin’s moving figure crossing the corridor. A group of policemen were herding him towards the courtroom with unusual urgency. In a few moments, the sociopath would have vanished from his view to face retribution for his crime.