by Fawaz Jaleel
Lead Cometh Before a Fall
It was around 1 a.m. in the morning when the team left from Tilak Singh’s house in Bachwara to their guest house in Begusarai. There was an eerie silence on their way back: no loud light music nor shop lights. Even on the highway after Murali toll plaza, it was just trucks and other vehicles. Ila was awake and diligently typed the new information from Dinesh Singh, while Sukumar snored continuously in his sleep. Yohan took the seat in front with the added responsibility of staying awake and ensuring that the driver wouldn’t feel sleepy during the way. He left the window open and a strong breeze gushed at his hair. Suddenly, there was a vibration from his pocket. He picked up the phone and saw a call from his father. Yohan feared that he had to give an explanation to his father and he was hoping to avoid it as much as possible. He ignored the first two calls but as his father tried relentlessly to get in touch, Yohan succumbed to the pressure and picked up the call.
Rajesh Tytler, his father, was impatiently waiting to hear from his son and the first words from the veteran industrialist were, “You son of a bitch! How dare you use my name for your needs!”
“Dad, I am sorry but I had no choice,” Yohan said in a feeble voice as he was prepared for this outburst.
“You want these privileges, then leave your job and join the family business,” came the father’s stern comment.
Yohan didn’t want to indulge in yet another conversation about his career. This topic was sealed after he cleared the IB examination and received his posting. But he also remembered proclaiming to his father how he would build his own identity without the cushions and perks of being Rajesh Tytler’s son. In his eight years of service, this was the first time that Yohan had broken this rule.
“What Tilak Singh and I have is an understanding. He owed me one and with this you have taken away my leverage. You know that I have factories in Bihar and any opposition from him will lead to worker strikes,” Yohan’s father continued his rant.
Today, India has around 145 cement companies present across the country and Yohan’s father owned one of them. However, in the early 1990s, there weren’t as many and the industry saw a boom with liberalization, increased expenditure by citizens, and growing need for houses and other establishments in the society. Yohan’s father was among the older titans of this industry where the top 20 companies claimed more than 70 percent of the market share, even today. Rajesh Tytler had one of his cement plants set up in Begusarai. By this time, MCPI had set up labor unions and members of these units worked in various factories including Yohan’s father’s. These laborers used to go for party meetings and other activities after work hours. Bihar, and the country in general, had seen revolts against the zamindari system (elite landlords). Indira Gandhi had passed an act in 1950 to abolish it but something that started as early as 1793 was deep rooted in the fabric of the country and would require a slow and systemic eradication. A common aspect was that most of these landlords were part of the highest rungs of the caste system and other elite religious groups. It was around early August in 1985 when the MCPI had planned a protest outside the District Magistrate’s headquarters for landless people. Tilak Singh was growing as one of the popular leaders of the party and he led these processions. However, when the police took a few leaders to a secluded spot for negotiation and it resulted in a fist fight and the use of lathis, the laborers started pelting stones. In return, the police started firing and the entire incident led to the death of a few laborers including a one-and-half-year-old girl. The police had registered a case against the protestors and Tilak Singh was among the lead accused. They had imposed Indian Penal Code Sections 146, 147, and 148 for rioting using “deadly weapons” and sections 302 and 307 (murder and attempt to murder). The leaders including Singh went into hiding. His contacts in the factory put him in touch with Rajesh Tytler. Yohan still remembers his father telling how Tilak Singh lived in their Delhi house in disguise of a servant. His father had also said how once when the police had come for a routine visit, Tilak Singh was the one who served them tea and the authorities had no clue it was him. It was the safest hideout for the man. Later, the case was proven to be false and Singh returned to Begusarai, contested the elections, and became a Member of Parliament in 1990 from Begusarai. He had given Yohan’s father a word that he would support him when required as a favor. After Yohan reminded Singh and cashed on this, Tilak Singh being the strict man he was, called and informed the father that their accounts have been settled.
“I am sorry, Dad. This is my first lead case and I will go to any extent to crack this,” said an emotional Yohan, who generally never reached that state of mind. His father understood that the son, while being a tough investigator, was already overwhelmed with the case. Yohan added, “I have a feeling we are close but there are just too many things to prove and I couldn’t let this go. Also, I couldn't put my team’s lives at risk without police protection and I knew Tilak Singh would oblige you.”
“Listen, I know your profession is hard and you need to put on a tough face but a son can always show his insecurities to a father,” Rajesh Tytler replied.
“Thanks, Dad and I hope I don’t drag you into this further,” Yohan said as he put his left hand on his right that was holding the phone. This was Yohan’s equivalent of a hug if his father was there with him.
“Yohan, son … in my profession, there is a lot of grey. But you are like your mother—straight and to the face. I admire that and you keep doing the right thing and nothing ... no goddamn political leader or anyone powerful can stop you from winning. If nothing else works, come back to your father and I’ll bloody hell deal with them”. Rajesh’s words were enough to pump up Yohan. He had a renewed sense of energy and was ready to take on further battles.
His father added, “And I hope all this was worth it and you got something from that boy.”
“It’s good but it's getting tougher,” Yohan replied.
They went on to have a good father-son heart-warming conversation that lifted a tired Yohan’s spirits.
After reaching the guesthouse at around 2:30 a.m., the team members directly went to sleep and decided they would wake up in the morning and convene for a meeting before briefing Director Verma.
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In the morning, they were hoping that the news didn’t reach the omnipresent ears and eyes of the media. There were speculations about the team’s visit to Bachwara. Yohan woke up aspiring for a fresh start after the previous night’s conversation with his father.
After breakfast, the team made a list of things to be presented to the CBI director, along with their next steps. Sukumar was entrusted with the responsibility of verifying Dinesh’s claims and getting witnesses to testify for it. While tracing Dinesh’s and Priyanshu’s movements, Sukumar had already prepared a list of people who would act as sources in Begusarai and surrounding areas. Ila, who had researched Tilak Singh, found it difficult to believe that the veteran politician parted with all the information he had in the Ashraf Zain murder case. She had found a potential link and focused on adding data to it.
Around 11:45 in the afternoon, the team started setting up the video call and keeping the relevant documentation ready. Director Verma joined the call ten minutes in advance and he seemed in a hurry, as usual.
“Okay, team. I hope you are close to solving this. I am facing immense pressure ... and ... umm Yohan, this political gimmick you pulled off without my knowledge could have cost you this case,” Verma started with a reprimand.
“I am sorry, sir, for not informing you,” Yohan replied.
“Got it! Means you aren’t sorry for doing it,” Verma was quick to read between the lines.
Yohan didn’t look straight up to the camera and into Verma’s eyes. Instead, he used his index finger to scratch his forehead above his right eyebrow and pretended to let it go. Yohan then quickly switched to briefing as that seemed like the best way to close this.
“We had a description and name from Piyali’s father an
d this helped us identify Priyanshu. Then, we verified school records, attendance logs, etc. and found that his partner was Dinesh Singh. These two were absent on identical dates and their friends testified that they were always together. Some of these people saw them in and around Begusarai town in the evenings on these days. A couple of security guards from the places they visited also identified the sketch.”
“What about Priyanshu? Where is he now?” Verma asked.
“We checked his phone records and the last location was Sarai Rohilla, Delhi. He has family there but his parents and other relatives have testified that he hasn’t reached home. Even his Delhi friends do not know about his whereabouts. Our NCR team is searching for him,” Sukumar added.
“Okay! I will inform the media during today’s briefing that we are on the lookout for this person. Continue…”
“Based on our interactions with their friends, their active involvements in college activities, etc., we had deduced that these two were working on some journal or newspaper. Dinesh confirmed that they wanted to start an online newspaper that Ashraf agreed to fund. The only clause was that the newspaper would be called Naya Bharat Samachar and this would have his party branding,” Yohan added.
“He also proposed the first two stories. Dinesh was working on a story of landless laborers and how it still exists in the 21st century. His family background was a huge plus for him to dwell in to this topic,” Ila reported.
“And what was Priyanshu working on?” Verma questioned.
“For that we have to back up a bit to where Ashraf started his political journey,” Yohan started the story. Verma knew Yohan well enough by now and knew how excited Yohan got when he cracked a backstory in an investigation. It was almost as if he got a writer’s mental orgasm. Yohan continued, “Ashraf started his own tutorial and entrance coaching that was opposed by his powerful competitors who had political backing. Now that Ashraf had some clout of his own, he wanted to expose the activities of these coaching centers.”
As Verma listened carefully, Ila had put up a scanned image of Ashraf’s house register and the name they encircled. The director noticed it and continued to hear what Yohan was saying,
“Sir, have you ever noticed how when the entrance results are out, every coaching institute puts out its list of successful candidates? If you observe carefully, you’ll notice that a lot of these institutes have similar names and faces,” Yohan continued.
“How’s that possible?” Verma asked.
Yohan asked Ila to open a file with Begusarai’s map. In the map, there were small pins put at multiple locations. Verma could see this on his screen and turned to Yohan for an explanation. Yohan rolled up his sleeves, sipped water from his glass, and started explaining the map.
“There is partial truth in these students’ names appearing in multiple lists,” Yohan began.
Begusarai town has a lot of coaching institutes and much like the cement industry, a few powerful players hold the monopoly here. In pursuit of ambition, students are often seen investing a large chunk of their time to coach for exams like AIEEE, JEE, NEET, etc. Over a period of time, this ambition turns into obsession and the hunt for a seat continues. Students start giving lesser importance to academics, extra-curricular activities, friends, etc. and focus on cracking these exams. Seeing the market size increase on a yearly basis, the two big sharks—Sumit Rajput’s Torque Tutorials and Bashir Hashmi’s Career Progress—approached the top schools and struck deals with them. The schools would give a list of their top-performing students to these businesses. Irrespective of whether they were enrolled in another small coaching institute or not, these big sharks would offer their regular classroom or video conferencing package depending on the student’s availability. Their field staff would meet the parents and convince them that their child’s odds would increase with double coaching. To make time for this, these tutorials have made an adjustment with the schools to provide attendance to these students while they skip regular classes and invest more time in entrance coaching. In the beginning, the schools had the major power and decided which students to give these institutes. Over the years, there was a dent in this power structure and these two tutorials gained control over the schools. Now, parents wanted their children to be allowed to attend these classes and if the schools didn't agree, they were willing to enroll the pupil into more “accommodating schools.” This way, the major players always ransacked the achievements of the smaller ones and could “rightfully claim” that these students belonged to their institute. Since they had more money, they put bigger and better advertisements leading the next batch of parents to believe that success in these exams is synonymous to the big coaching giants.
“As you can see from Ashraf’s house register, Bashir Hashmi of Career Progress has visited Ashraf’s house twice in the last week before his death. In fact, he visited before that too,” Yohan now added a name to the issue.
“But that isn’t enough to accuse Bashir Hashmi. We need more conclusive stuff, Yohan. He is closely associated with the Bharatiya National Congress,” Verma raised his concern.
“I know, sir. We have more information. Here are a few text messages Bashir’s PA sent to Ashraf.”
Yohan moved on to the next slide. The messages read as follows:
Message 1: Hashmi saab is not happy with you poking your nose into our matter. Stay away, Ashraf.
Message 2: Pick up the call. Even today, your boys went to a few of our institutes. Back off for your own benefit.
Message 3: Keep the colony issue out of this. You are crossing the boundaries. This time Patel Saab won’t even mediate for you. You have pissed them off too.
“Not just these, there are more which threaten Ashraf to back off,” Ila added as she progressed through the slides.
“Wait, is he referring to the same Patel? And what’s the colony issue?” Verma was quick to pick on the unanswered points.
“Yes. He is referring to Dhiman Patel, the Bihar chief of the BNC. He is popularly called Patel saab in the party and local circuits,” Sukumar replied. He continued to answer the second part of Verma’s question.
“And as for the colony issue, Dinesh had no clue about this. Their report was just about the nexus and how the big sharks eat the smaller ones and steal their credit. But Ashraf had more in mind. He was planning to send a legal notice to Bashir Hashmi. This may or may not have been a part of the news story but once we get Priyanshu, we can confirm this.”
“What notice?” Director Verma’s curiosity rose as he knew there was enough to secure a questioning warrant for Bashir or at least his PA and anything more is an icing on the cake.
“So, Bashir Hashmi didn’t stop with just tie-ups and new customer acquisitions. He started opening centers in the residential areas of Begusarai so that it was easier for parents to send their children to their institutes. Now, these weren’t built as well as his commercial ones. They were floors of houses or flats converted into centers. As it is, these violated the normal government rules such as separate toilets for girls and boys and a compulsory 40-feet-wide road opposite the coaching center.”
As Yohan spoke, he showed the prerequisites for opening coaching centers as instructed by the government and moved on to his next slide.
“But the majority of the tutorials violate the washroom and road clause. But look at this, sir. This is a judgement passed by the Rajasthan High Court in 2016.”
Yohan went on to show a copy of the verdict dated 3/02/2016, in response to PIL no. 10941/2015 which prohibits private tutorials from opening centers in residential areas. Bashir Hashmi had opened up multiple ones in various areas in and out of Begusarai to capitalize on the increased demand. Most of these weren’t fire compliant nor had basic safety measures and were prone to hazards like the Surat coaching institute fire incident in 2019.
“So, he was going to set this ruling as a precedence and appeal. Can any legal expert confirm this?” Verma felt assured seeing his team was on to something.
&
nbsp; “We verified this with a lawyer who handles Ashraf’s cases. He said this can be used for the appeal. He also informed us that Bashir Hashmi approached maulvi saab to reason with Ashraf and was mildly aggressive. Piyush Bansal is actually the trust’s lawyer but Ashraf also availed of his services. He also said that we can consider this as the maulvi’s official stand.”
“Will he testify this in court or go back on his statement? I mean he should have informed this earlier,” Verma probed.
“Sir, we spoke to the maulvi after speaking to Piyush. He agreed to meet us. We’ll collect his official statement. Importantly, we have a motive here ... Bashir’s visits and messages via this PA are all indicating a possible involvement. Can we go ahead?” Yohan sought approval.
“Verma sir, Dinesh also said that they met Piyali to inform about the stories as they feared this may have some bearing on the case,” Ila added.
“Piyali came to know about this and within a week, she was found dead under mysterious circumstances,” Sukumar also chipped in.
“But there are no signs to suggest that it isn’t a suicide,” Verma raised a valid point.
“Yes. Maybe the two are linked but we don’t have evidence as of now. But we can certainly question him for Ashraf’s murder,” Yohan countered.
“Okay. What about the other suspect, Chirag? Did Dinesh have any clue about his business with Ashraf?” Verma asked.
“Apparently, Ashraf just introduced Chirag as a journalist and informed him about the stories the boys were working on,” Ila answered.
“When have we ever disappointed you, sir? You want Chirag, we’ll get you Chirag soon,” Yohan chided and exuded a lot of confidence.
“Okay. Go ahead and get the necessary paperwork started to speak to Bashir. The media is going to focus a lot more on the case now considering his BNC link. Careful, team. No stunts like Tilak Singh.” Verma ended the call with a word of caution and went to attend the press briefing.
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Even at 2 a.m. in the night, the media conducted special bulletins to harp on the news of Bashir Hashmi’s possible arrest. AIPIM leader Akbar Syed was among the first ones to condemn the news and his byte was being replayed innumerable times. He accused the ruling party, SDP, of using government institutions to suppress the voice of the minorities and attack the law-abiding and resourceful members of the community who they perceived as a threat. SDP’s spokesperson was quick to retort. “I hope Akbarji knows that arrests happen on the basis of evidence and not random opinions. The team investigating the case has members of varied communities and they would have refuted if this was the case.”