Bihar Diaries

by Amit Lodha

  I looked at my handiwork with great satisfaction. I sent all the numbers to the Home Secretary’s office for permission to put them under observation. I also bought five more mobile sets with the SS fund. My table was full of mobile phones and my secret service fund was being depleted.

  The permission for parallel listening came quickly from the Home Secretary’s office. Things get much easier when you start getting results.

  With Horlicks’s arrest, I had been spared the torture of listening to his idiotic romantic conversations. But now I had so many more numbers to listen to.

  I gave one mobile set to Ajit to keep a tab on. Ranjan also got his share of mobile phones. I kept two more new phones with me. Those sets were earmarked specifically for the numbers Vijay called most often.

  I had done the hard work. Now I waited for the results. I had not been this anxious even for the UPSC exam results.

  A week passed. All the new numbers were under observation, but we gathered no worthwhile information.

  My mobile phone was vibrating. I took it out from under the pillow. I was delighted. Vijay was calling someone from his old BSNL number. There was an activity on Vijay’s phone after so long. I could not have been happier. I moved to the other room quickly without colliding into anything.

  ‘Sanjay, kya chal raha hai (Sanjay, what is happening in Shekhpura)?’ asked a worried Vijay.

  ‘Bhaiyya, why have you called? Hum ne mana kiya tha na (I had told you not to). And why are you using your old phone?’

  ‘Arre, bhai, the new Airtel SIM was not working. So I just thought of trying your number using my old BSNL number. Iska network aa raha hai (This one has network).’

  ‘Everything has changed in Shekhpura. The police have become very active. Horlicks’s arrest has been a big setback. The SP works very secretively. It’s almost impossible to find out his next move.’

  ‘Hmm. You are right. Could you find out who the traitor is?’

  ‘Nahin, bhaiyya. It could be anyone. Suraj, Laddua, I don’t know. Anyone can betray us. You have to be very careful. I hope nobody knows where you are.’

  ‘No, no, nobody knows my location. I can’t trust anyone. But how long will I keep hiding? There has to be an end to this.’

  Both Sanjay and Vijay kept quiet. I knew there was only one end to it. Vijay’s arrest.

  I checked the clock. It was 4.47 a.m. Even at such an early hour, when dawn was just about to break, Vijay was under stress. It seemed I had robbed him of his sleep.

  My day could not have started better. It was clear that Vijay was still using his old phone too, though only for emergencies. I was happy that I had continued keeping his old BSNL number under observation.

  I called Ranjan immediately.

  ‘Have you heard of any Sanjay? Anyone by this name who’s close to Vijay?’

  ‘Sir, Sanjay is a very common name,’ said a sleepy Ranjan, ‘but I’ll try to find out.’ He must have cursed me for never letting him rest peacefully.

  I waited for the clock to strike 10 a.m. I immediately called Sharmaji, the jovial GM of BSNL, Patna.

  ‘Sharmaji, sorry for bothering you. I need the call details and location of a number. I have sent the number to you by SMS. You can note it down too.’

  ‘Yes, sirji, I saw your SMS. You sent it quite early––I think around 5 a.m. The number is 9413@#$343, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Sharmaji. Please, I need the details ASAP.’

  ‘You will get it in your inbox in ten minutes. Please tell me when you arrest Vijay Samrat.’

  I was a bit surprised.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Arre, sir, hum bhi toh Bihar mein rehte hain (Arre, sir, we live in Bihar too). We keep reading about your work in the newspapers. Moreover, everyone in my office knows you too. No other SP calls us almost every day. I am sure, with your zeal, you will arrest Vijay soon.’

  I thanked him and felt absolutely reinvigorated. I turned on my laptop, munching on the burnt toast I liked, with a liberal dose of butter. My inbox showed an email from BSNL.

  Vijay’s BSNL number did not show any activity, apart from the one call that he had made in the morning to Sanjay. So it was obvious that he was using an Airtel number now. This is what he had told Sanjay too. Another column of the Excel sheet showed his location as MP Raj or Maheshpur Raj in Pakur. I wondered if it was his temporary hideout or a permanent location. And who was this Sanjay fellow?

  Almost all the numbers I had painstakingly identified, and which were under observation, were issued against fake identities. It was quite common in Bihar during those days. SIM card distributors hardly ever checked the bank details, driving licence, etc. In fact, some of the vendors specialized in issuing cards to dubious people. A whole racket flourished.

  Luckily, Sanjay had got that SIM card in his own name. We checked his background. He was a simple schoolteacher with absolutely no police record. I dug around a bit and found out, through my sources, that he had looked up to Vijay as his elder brother, right from his childhood. His loyalty to Vijay was unwavering. It did not matter that Vijay was a beast now.

  I immediately put Sanjay’s number on parallel listening too and monitored each call over the next three or four days. Sanjay’s conversations did not even have a mention of Vijay. I started thinking hard. There had to be another way Sanjay was talking to Vijay.

  Paulo Coelho wrote in his bestseller The Alchemist that if you desperately desire something, the entire universe conspires to help you achieve it. This was definitely coming true for me. Finally, one of Sanjay’s conversations revealed how Vijay was communicating.

  ‘Hello, Sanjay Bhaiyya. Sahib se baat kaise hogi (When can I talk to him)?’ the woman’s voice was familiar now, as if I had known her my entire life.

  In a feudal state, any person of some importance immediately assumes the title of ‘Sahib’. Even many men preferred to be called ‘Sahib’ by their wives.

  ‘Shanti Bhabhi, can’t you be patient? Let Vijay Bhai call. Then I’ll make you talk to him. And why have you called me on this number? I had specially given you another number.’

  ‘Arre, kya kare, both the numbers are saved under your name. I think I dialled your original number by mistake. Next time I will call on your “special” number. Kasam se.’

  Once again, lady luck had smiled on me. Shanti Devi would be the reason for Vijay’s fall. She had already helped us with Horlicks’s arrest. I promised myself that I would personally thank her the day I arrested Vijay.

  I asked for the call details of Sanjay’s number and circled Shanti Devi’s number. I was surprised that she had another number, apart from the one I had been observing ever since she had been in Deoghar. This meant that either she had had one more SIM or she had bought a new one.

  I got Shanti’s new number and had a feeling that I had seen it somewhere. I took out the list of the new numbers I had made. I glanced through the list and found the same number! Shanti Devi had been in touch with Vijay for a long time. In fact, I had inadvertently put that number also under observation.

  I quickly called Ajit.

  ‘Ajit, I had given you one mobile set for parallel listening. Have you heard anything of relevance?’

  Ajit looked at me sheepishly.

  ‘Sir, ek aurat baat karti hai (Sir, a woman keeps talking). I could not make out much. She mostly talks about useless things.’

  ‘Get the phone immediately and give it to me,’ I said.

  I wish I had tracked the calls on that number myself and not given it to Ajit. What if I had missed some important conversation?

  But there was no point crying over spilt milk.

  35

  ‘How Do I Turn Off the Gas?’

  I charged the mobile that I was using to track Shanti’s number and waited. After a few hours, Shanti called.

  ‘Hello, Sanjay Bhaiyya, kab baat karvaayenge (Hello, Sanjay Bhaiyya, how long do I have to wait)?’

  ‘Bhabhi, I told you to be patient. He will call by 5 p.
m. today. You stay home. I’ll call you.’

  I instantly called Sharmaji and gave him Shanti Devi’s number.

  ‘Sharmaji, please give me the call details of 9413***877.’

  ‘Itni si baat (Such a small thing)? It will be done right away,’ replied Sharmaji.

  I needed to find out Sanjay’s ‘special’ number from Shanti Devi’s outgoing logs. I scanned the records and found the number in the next ten minutes. Luckily, that was a BSNL number too. It was going to be a busy day for Sharmaji.

  I checked my watch. It was already 3.40 p.m. I needed to put Sanjay’s new number on parallel listening right away. I dialled Sharmaji again.

  ‘Sharmaji, I need a personal favour. I’m sure you will not disappoint me.’

  ‘Arre, sir, anything for you. Aadesh karein (Please command).’

  Sharmaji was in a good mood, as always.

  ‘I need you to put a number on parallel listening right now. I am expecting a call on that number in the next one hour.’

  ‘Okay, sir, it will be done,’ said Sharmaji, with his usual cheerfulness.

  I felt relieved.

  ‘Thank you so much, Sharmaji. I am very grateful to you. Please do let me know if I can be of any help to you ever.’

  ‘No, sir. No need to thank me. Just arrest that fellow. It will be a big service to the people.’

  ‘Surely, Sharmaji.’

  I have always believed in developing relationships and have benefited tremendously from my excellent relations with people. I had never met Sharmaji, yet we had developed a bond just from talking over the phone. Both of us were sincere and true to our jobs. That was probably the reason for our rapport.

  At 4.57 p.m., my mobile phone rang. It was Sanjay’s number. I pressed the green button. I thanked Sharmaji in my heart for his tremendous help.

  It was the same husky, rasping voice that had threatened me just a few days ago. I would never forget Vijay’s voice.

  ‘Sanjay, kya khabar? Shanti bagal mein hai kya (Sanjay, how is everything? Is Shanti around)?’

  ‘Pranaam, bhaiyya. Things will be all right once you come back. Shanti Bhabhi has been desperate to talk to you. I will take the phone to her. Just stay on the phone.’

  In an instant, I understood Vijay’s modus operandi. It was a simple yet intelligent trick. Whenever Vijay wanted to talk to anyone, he called on Sanjay’s phone. Then Sanjay would take it to that person. Vijay and Sanjay had both bought new SIM cards, obviously under false names. Now that I had Sanjay’s ‘special’ new number, I would get Vijay’s ‘special’ number soon.

  No one, absolutely no one, knew about those two numbers. There was no question of the police tracking them. Vijay must have somehow come to know that the police could determine many details from a mobile number. He was intelligent enough to understand that the police was keeping a watch on a number of his associates, friends and relatives.

  His days in Nawada Jail must have exposed him to the methods of the police. Netaji had also warned him in no uncertain terms. He had to be extremely careful after Horlicks’s arrest. He knew that the police was after him like a pack of bloodthirsty hounds.

  What he did not know was that I was working alone, like a tiger. And I was now obsessed. My only aim in life was to put him behind bars.

  Vijay was a worthy adversary. Both of us had taken entirely different paths to get here, and were facing each other head-on. While I had grown up as a meek, under-confident adolescent and then gone on to study at elite institutes where I had developed character, Vijay was a sociopath, an arrogant beast. He loathed the upper echelons of society. He had always been uncouth. When I had reached my professional peak as the SP of Nalanda, Vijay’s terrifying reputation as a ganglord had grown just miles away in Nawada at the same time. Many times, both of us had made headlines together in the newspapers––Vijay for killing people and I for saving victims. Even the number of people we had killed and saved was nearly the same.

  I heard Shanti Devi come on the line, absolutely animated.

  ‘Kya, Sahib, kab se wait kar rahi hoon (What is this, Sahib? I’ve been waiting for so long). You call so rarely nowadays. I miss you so much.’

  ‘Meri jaan, I also miss you so much. Let me take care of that bloody SP Lodha. Then I will come and take you in my arms. Forever.’

  Vijay was having an affair with Shanti Devi! This was more than a Bollywood scandal.

  I immediately called Sharmaji and asked for the call details of Sanjay’s number. The email popped up on my laptop screen in ten minutes. I moved the cursor down the Excel sheet to one row: 4.57 p.m., when an incoming call had lasted six minutes, twenty-four seconds. This was what I was looking for. I saw a number in the adjacent column. Finding the ten digits was like being handed the lucky numbers of a jackpot. I was thrilled beyond words. Now that I had Vijay’s new number, I was back in the game.

  I called the Airtel office for this number’s call details. Simultaneously, I sent that number to the Home Secretary’s office. Within a few hours, I was firmly in the driver’s seat. I had almost every detail I needed to start hunting down the man again.

  The call details were startling. The entire record had only one number in the outgoing and incoming columns, that of Sanjay. Vijay was being extremely careful. Sanjay had a new SIM card too, just for talking to Vijay. Purely by chance, Shanti had called on Sanjay’s original number and led me to these new numbers.

  Vijay called Sanjay regularly, mostly to talk to Shanti, it seemed. She was back in her village after Horlicks’s arrest. She was still surprised that the police could arrest Horlicks from their house in Deoghar. How had the police reached there? Who could have leaked the address? But she sounded happier here. From the conversations I had eavesdropped on and the information I had gathered, it seemed like she had never loved Horlicks, but only lusted for Vijay. I would later come to know that Shanti was attracted to Vijay’s violent tendencies and bad boy antics. Horlicks was too straightforward a person for her as he did not have Vijay’s charisma. And who knows, she might even be aware of the affair between Horlicks and Sulekha!

  From the details I received from Airtel, it was clear that Vijay’s location was constant. The Airtel SIM was in the Tower C area of Nalhati in Birbhum, West Bengal. This intrigued me because his BSNL number had shown his location to be Pakur just a few days ago. How could he be in two places?

  I woke Ranjan up from his sleep again. He had just returned from Ranchi after tending to his ill wife. His wife’s manic depression was increasing day by day. The doctor had attributed her condition to loneliness. A policeman’s life is tough, but it is even worse for his family. An average policeman spends most of his time away from them. The postings are usually in far-flung areas which do not have basic amenities. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the job, the distance between a policeman and his family often increases in more than one way.

  I briefed Ranjan about the new developments. He sounded happy to hear of the progress. He could see that I was pursuing Vijay with all my might, that I had become obsessed. He knew that I would win this game and also that he was playing a very important role in it. Raju and Krishna were the foreign players in this franchise, just like those in the IPL now.

  ‘Sir, we will leave for Birbhum tonight. It is a very densely populated town. We will have some difficulty in communicating as the local language is Bengali. It will take us some time to get information about Vijay’s location,’ he said when he realized what I had in mind.

  ‘What do Raju and Krishna have to report?’

  ‘Sir, Vijay does not have any acquaintances or relatives in Pakur or Birbhum. They are also surprised by his choice of hiding places.’

  ‘Ranjan, Vijay is totally rattled right now. He knows he can’t trust anyone. Naturally, going to an entirely new location and living incognito makes sense.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Drive safe, Ranjan.’

  Ranjan smiled and sat in the Bolero.

  ‘Listen, Chun, I
have put some milk on the gas to boil. Could you please turn off the gas?’ Tanu shouted from the bathroom.

  I got up lazily and walked to the kitchen. I looked at the stove and examined the knobs. The milk was getting hot, nearly boiling, but I suddenly realized I did not know how to turn off the gas. I panicked as the milk was almost on the verge of boiling over. I ran to the bathroom and banged on the door.

  ‘Tanu! Tanu!’ I shouted hysterically. The kids looked at me with amusement.

  ‘What? Why are you banging the door?’ Tanu asked, wiping the soap from her face.

  ‘I don’t know how to turn off the gas. Should I turn the knob right or left?’

  ‘What? You still haven’t turned it off? The milk would have spilled over by now.’

  She put on her gown and ran to the kitchen. There was milk all over the stove. Disaster had struck. Tanu looked at me with mock anger.

  ‘So much for your IIT engineering.’

  This really pissed me off. ‘Don’t you make fun of me. And they don’t teach you how to boil milk in IIT!’ I shot back.

  She just smiled at me and wrapped me in her arms.

  36

  ‘You Have Won a Nokia Mobile Phone’

  Nalhati is a small town in the Birbhum district of West Bengal, located near the Bengal–Jharkhand border. According to Hindu mythology, it is here that the nala, or throat, of Goddess Shakti had fallen. The Shaktipeeth Nalhateshwari temple is thus named after it. Ranjan and company camped in the vicinity of the temple.

  ‘It is proving to be very difficult finding Vijay in Nalhati, sir. I’m a bit confused too. How can Vijay be in two locations at the same time? You told me that his BSNL mobile phone showed Pakur as the location, while the Airtel phone’s location was Nalhati on the same day, at almost the same time,’ said a perplexed Ranjan.