Brutal (8 page)

S
eema stood
outside the glass cabin of her boss Diya Shah, the editor-in-chief of Century News. She could see her talking on her mobile phone in an animated manner. A man dressed in a suit was sitting across from the lady, with his back towards her. Diya caught a glance of Seema and gestured her to come in.

As Seema pushed the cabin door to enter, she came face to face with the man in the suit. Tall, thin, with an oblong face. Exquisite dressing. Neatly combed hair. The man was straight out of Forbes magazine.
Oh my God!
She stared at him with amazement.
Anwar Shah!

The man cleared his throat, suggesting she was blocking his way. She said “sorry” and allowed him to pass.

Wow!

Anwar Shah was a billionaire business magnate and the illustrious brother of Diya Shah. While she headed Century News, her brother led its holding company known as the Centennium Group having interests in media, fashion, shipping, chemicals and garment manufacturing businesses. The man was credited with creating this great empire from scratch.

Seema idolized Anwar Shah since her college days. She still remembered the inspiring speech he made during her convocation.

‘Impossibility is an inherent part of nature, an ancient beast. It instils fear in your heart. Yet, you have to accept it, embrace it. It’ll be a terrible experience, mind you. But you need to bear it and then forget it. Just put a number on that piece of memory and lock it in a closet inside your mind. 

What’s that number, you might ask. Well, it’s the probability. Of you succeeding, against all odds. And it will be low, very low. That’s why you need to hide it from your eyes. Just remember that your probability of succeeding is never zero. 

Once you have done that, use every quantum of energy available in your body to achieve what people so fondly call as the impossible. You can do it. I know that. And the day you do, you’ll realize that the number didn't matter at all.’

Years later, she had been so excited when she got an opportunity to join Century News. It felt like a privilege to work in a company owned by Anwar Shah. The charm had still not faded completely. In fact, after this encounter, it had been reignited.

“Where have you been dear? I was looking for you since morning,” Diya said, bringing Seema back to the present world.

She looked at her boss, studying her face, trying to spot any resemblance to her brother. Surprisingly, the brother-sister duo didn’t seem to have any similarity in their facial features.
Would they be that different from the inside?
No, she thought. Though she didn’t know Anwar Shah personally, she imagined him to have a nature quite similar to his sister’s.

She had always seen Diya as a ruthless boss who kept demanding the impossible from her staff. It appeared that her whole family had a fascination with impossibility. These guys were born with an innate desire to whack impossibility out of the park. Forty-plus and unmarried, the lady had created a name for herself in the media industry in a short span. Running a large media house was not easy. It was only through her passion that she had managed to turn around a nose-diving media company.

“Are you lost?” Diya clicked her fingers. “I wanted to know if you’re working on a story.”

“Oh…sorry…I was following up on a lead in the Nitin Tomar case.”

“The child killer? Good that the son-of-a-bitch is dead. What was the name of the group, which killed him? Some Mujahideen or something…”

“Mujahid-e-Bashariat.”

“Yeah… where do they find names like those?” she said. “This outfit was a one man shop. Right?”

“That’s what everyone is saying. I don’t agree, however. Mohammed Afroz, the sniper who killed Nitin is dead within 72 hours of that incident. That too of drug overdose. Something doesn’t fit here.”

“Hmm…” Diya said with a doubtful face. “Our local correspondent is covering the story at Ambala. You aren’t planning to go to there by any means. Are you?”

“Not as of now. I’m looking at a new angle. There might be a huge conspiracy behind all this.”

“What kind of conspiracy?”

“I can’t get into details now,” Seema said. “I myself am not sure of what to believe and what not to. But I think things will get clearer in a few days.”

“So you want to say there might be an explosive story in whatever you are doing?”

“I think so.”

“Keep working then. In case, you face any bureaucratic or political hurdles, just let me know.”

Seema nodded. She knew what Diya meant. She was hinting at her brother’s power. Anwar Shah had a deep say in national politics and policy making.

Seema came to her cubicle and opened the envelope Dr Kalyan Ghosh had handed to her. She took out eight pages of black and white printouts containing news articles from Times of India, Navbharat Times and a couple of unknown news sites.

She read and reread each of the articles. When she was done, she had a frown on her face.

Time to visit Bandhavgarh.

T
he rush
on the New Delhi roads reached its peak as soon as dusk began to shroud the city. Intimacy of a crowd madly running after public transport and the milieu of vehicles honking in traffic jams often gives people a sense of security. A feel that no one can do them any harm in such a public place.

Dr Kalyan Ghosh was also guilty of putting his guard down with such a false sense of security. A lot of things were going on in his mind, as he plodded on the footpath trying to locate the place where his bus would stop. He had been hiding in the city for almost three months, rarely moving out from his one room house he had rented in Paharganj. He had no friends. He seldom called his family living in Durgapur, not to put them in danger.
They might be sniffing into our phones.

But there were a lot of things he wanted to talk to somebody, but had not been able to summon courage to do so. It was years since somebody had approached him. He just couldn’t avoid meeting Seema, even though he was scared of coming out in the open.

Now, after talking to her, he somehow felt reassured that the truth will eventually come out. He had taken care to keep the meeting at a secure place. And he had given her a major clue just to see what she comes out with. At the end of the meeting, he had made up his mind to tell her the complete story when they meet next.

He stopped and looked around. By mistake, he had moved half a kilometre ahead of his bus stop. As soon as he turned around and started walking back, his eyes fell over a group of 2-3 people. They were all looking at him, but turned their gazes abruptly. That was a troubling sign.

He looked at the men again. In the evening light, their faces were not visible clearly. One of them was a tall, bearded man who seemed vaguely familiar to him.
Bangalore! I had seen him in Bangalore.
He could sense danger. His heart started beating faster and his body began trembling.

He reversed his direction, took a few steps slowly and then darted down the footpath. The men chased him. He looked back.
Three guys. Help me, God.

He ran as fast as he could. But the crowd, moving in the opposite direction, was impeding his sprint. He looked behind again. There were now only two guys on his trail. The bearded man was gone.
Where’s the third one?
There was no time to think.

A traffic policeman was standing nearby. For once, he thought of going to him and asking for help. But then, he saw one of his pursuers pull out something from his trousers.
A pistol.
A sudden chill passed through Dr. Kalyan’s body. Next second, the bearded man came out of nowhere and stabbed him below the rib cage using a small knife. Pain shot through his body. Like a cornered animal, Dr Kalyan shoved his opponent with a huge force. The bearded man fell on the ground.

Dr Kalyan looked behind. One of his pursuers had aimed his pistol at him.

His last chance was now. He jumped on the busy street and tried to cross the road. A couple of cars soared past him, narrowly missing. He could hear a few vehicles behind himself, pushing their brakes and screeching. He kept on running.
Only a few meters more.

A car finally hit him from behind. He was flung away a few meters, landing on the road again. He knew it was all over. He saw his last moments. He saw his family, his two sweet daughters and then he saw himself – smiling, in an idyllic land.

But he came back to reality in a second. He was not dead yet. He saw the three men standing at one far end of the road, staring at him, but not able to gather the courage to cross a busy road. He felt dizzy, but still managed to stand up. He could feel the salty taste of blood in his mouth.

A bus moved past him, honking its horn loudly. He used all his energy to latch onto its door handle and clamber on to it. He was pulled in by the people standing on the bus door. The bus kept running at its speed.

Before passing out, Dr Kalyan became aware of one thing. That he was alive.

But, for how long?

T
hough small
, Bandhavgarh National Park is one of the most popular national parks in India. Located in Madhya Pradesh, it is famous for Bengal tigers, having their highest density in the world.

Two years ago, a group of wildlife documentary makers from National Geographic stayed in Bandhavgarh for about one week. It had been one of the most prolific visits for them that year. They had had ample sightings of Bengal tigers and rare species like the Malabar hornbills and the Four-horned Antelope.

But there was something else for which that trip would haunt them forever. During one of their filming sessions for Indian hyenas, they had accidentally stumbled into what later turned out to be a mass grave of humans. One of the hyenas had dug up a hole in the ground, from which a skeleton hand was protruding.

By the time the police and crime scene investigators reached the spot, the local media had created a sensation. After a four feet deep excavation, the police found three headless skeletons with their skulls lying alongside. Not a shred of clothing was present on the skeletons to allow for any identification.

The post-autopsy report termed their deaths as “cold-blooded murder”, having taken place about six to seven years ago from then. The victims were estimated to be in their early twenties. While the cleanly dismembered neck bone indicated a single hit from a sharp edged weapon like an axe or a heavy sword, a deep gash on one of the skulls pointed definitively to an axe.

The question was – Who were these victims?

The police came out with a list of fifteen people who had disappeared and hence had been presumed dead in the nearby districts about 6-7 years ago. Only six of them fit the age and height criteria. Four of them belonged to the same engineering college and had disappeared on the same day. Their names were Vikram Pandey, Kunal Chaubey, Anil Jaiswal and Ratan Pathak. It was rumoured that these kids had gone into the jungle to party, but had never returned.

A series of investigations, which involved collecting DNA samples from their family members and matching them with the DNA found on the skeletons, finally confirmed the identities of the victims. The deceased were –Vikram, Anil and Ratan, brutally murdered about six years ago. No trace though could be found of the fourth person – Kunal Chaubey.

Seema’s mind kept juggling between numerous questions as her flight took off for Jabalpur.

Was Kunal Chaubey the killer or was he also dead? Why were the youngsters killed?
But the biggest question of them all was –
What has it got to do with the Nitin Tomar case?

She closed her eyes. A much needed sleep before the goose hunt.

P
rakash had never seen
Mrinal work in front of him. He really wanted to know what his ‘trade secret’ was. He knocked on the door of Mrinal’s hotel room. The door opened and Prakash peeped in curiously. He saw Mrinal talking to someone on the phone.

The state of the room killed much of Prakash’s enthusiasm. It gave him the feel of a call-center, with multiple mobile phones ringing and many weird user interfaces open on Mrinal’s laptop. A thick cloud of cigarette smoke enveloped the room. The bed was a complete mess with all of Ambala’s gadgets lying there with their crisscrossing wires.

Even with his limited knowledge of electronic gadgetry, Prakash was able to figure out that a few devices were card readers, the ones used to access the data on smart cards and magnetic swipes. He noticed a SIM card inserted into one of the card readers, which was connected to Mrinal’s laptop.

“Hey, I told you I’ll come to you. Not the other way round,” Mrinal said, seeing Prakash trying to peek into the laptop screen. “You aren’t authorized to see how I work.” He was done with his phone call.

“Now I know how the great Mrinal works,” Prakash said.

“No sir, you still don’t know a lot of things about me.”

“What’s so secretive about you? Are you a spy?” Prakash asked. “By the way, seeing the amount of heat and smoke your room generates, I would suggest, you keep the fire brigade’s number on speed dial.”

Mrinal smiled.

“Any luck with Afroz’s mobile?” Prakash changed the topic.

“Not much luck. He has barely used this SIM card. I could find only one man named Ramesh Puri, who he had called from his mobile. The call was made in the vicinity of a warehouse near Grand Trunk Road. I have an address of this man, but as usual it’s fake. Which means we might be on the right track.”

Prakash’s eyes lighted up on hearing what Mrinal just said. “When was this call made? Was it before Nitin Tomar’s killing?” he asked.

Mrinal pulled up a post-it note stuck on his table and said looking into it, “It was made about two weeks before his killing. Is that significant?”

“Yes. Because the video created by MeB denouncing and threatening Nitin Tomar also started circulating around that time only. You know, there’s something that has been bothering me since we checked out Afroz’s house.”

“And what’s that?”

“We didn’t come across any video recording instrument in his house. And neither did the police. So the question that begs an answer now is – Where was this threat video recorded? I have studied that video so many times trying to figure out where exactly it has been shot. The only thing I could infer is that the place looked like a large shop floor in a factory or….”

“A warehouse,” Mrinal said.