by Shilpa Jain
The case of black magic murders in Mumbai
Shilpa Jain
Copyright@ Shilpa Jain 2018
Mumbai, Maharashtra.
India 400081
All rights reserved by the author. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author. Published by the author.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, character, business, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual person, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
The views expressed in this book are entirely those of the author. The author asserts the moral rights to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 2018
Dedicated to all my readers and to this wonderful planet.
Acknowledgement
A special thanks to Dr Pranav Kodial (PK) for brutally and brilliantly critiquing the plot of my story, and for pointing out the loopholes that I had obviously missed. I am grateful for your precious opinion and the time you spent on reviewing my manuscript.
A warm hug and loads of love to Ophira Abraham for minutely going through my work and painstakingly noting down every error that she felt needed my attention. Thank you very much, Ophira. You are one of the most honest and gentlest souls I have ever come across.
Thank you Bindu Andrade for reading my story and giving me a reader’s point of view.
Thank you, Rajesh for taking out time from your busy schedule to read my story and for providing your valuable feedback.
Thank you Akshay and Aarushi for patiently listening to my plot in the developmental stages.
I am eternally grateful to all of you.
Prologue
Outside the exasperating city of Mumbai lies the pristine greenery of Tungareshwar forest. In the forest lies a blue lake surrounded by verdure. Near the lake is a peaceful ashram. Harmonic chanting of mantras fills up the sandalwood-fragrant smoky atmosphere of the ashram. A group of ten aghoris are performing Mahakali puja at the ashram.
A 16-year-old aghori boy with a black mole just outside his right eye asks his elderly guru, “Is it possible to obtain a boon from Mahakali?”
The guru with silvery long hair flowing from his head and face smiles. “Why only Mahakali? You can obtain blessings from all the mahavidya goddesses.”
“Mahavidya goddesses?” the pupil narrows his eyes.
“Yes son, there are ten mahavidya goddesses, all incarnations of Goddess Parvati. By pleasing them you can obtain various siddhis from them.
“Mahakali is the most superior among them. She can give you fame and prosperity.
“Bagalmukhi can protect you from evil powers and from all kinds of enemies.
“Chinnamastika will grant you the power to use another body as a vehicle for your soul.
“Bhuvaneshwari is the ruler of earth. She can grant you success in every venture you undertake.
“Matangi has the power to fulfil all your desires.
“Sorasi will give you the power to excel in whatever you do.
“Dhumavati, the smoky widow, is ugly and fearsome. She will help you conquer black magic.
“Tripurasundari can give you the power to rule the three worlds.
“Tara can grant you tantric powers to destroy your enemies.
“And lastly, Bhairavi, the fearless, will free you from all fears.
“By making offerings to all the mahavidyas, one can attain immortality.”
“Immortality?” asks the disciple in awe.
The guru pushes aside his unruly hair. “Yes, Om hreem chandrike hans kleen kreem swaha, meaning Yakshini Chandrika will appear before you with a drink containing the nectar of immortality after all the rituals are performed. But why do you ask son? We are aghoris, not tantrics. We are learning to detach ourselves from this world like Lord Shiva. By performing these rituals, you will be cursed to remain on earth forever.”
“Guruji, do you know how to perform the mahavidya rituals?” enquires the pupil, still seated cross-legged and uptight on the ground in front of his guru who is sitting on a raised stone seat.
“No son, only a tantric with a dark soul like Bhadrakaal would know the rituals. Why do you ask?” The guru is worried.
“Because I want to become immortal,” declares the pupil.
The guru is alarmed. “I refuse to grant you permission to go. I cannot let you go on a path of self-destruction, son.”
The disciple arches a brow and throws a defying cackle. The guru signals the other disciples to overpower the pupil. Four of them respond to the guru’s order, but the remaining four stand firmly beside the young aghori.
It’s five versus five. The guru senses the danger he is in and recites some mantra. He pulls out a hidden knife from his robe and throws it at his young disciple.
“I will do everything in my power to restrain you and protect the world from evil.”
The knife pierces the young aghori in his right upper arm. He recoils, partly, because of the momentum of the knife and mainly, because of shock at his Guru’s action. He recovers instantaneously and pulls out the knife with ease, unaffected by the blood flowing from his wound.
Without taking his gaze off the guru’s face, he tilts his head and says, “Then I am afraid I will have to begin my rituals by offering you and your disciples to Mahakali.”
The young aghori throws the knife with great force towards his guru. Before the guru can react, the knife pierces his throat. The guru chokes on his own blood and collapses after making a few gruesome gurgling sounds, his bloodshot eyes open and staring at his disciple in shock and fear.
The young aghori’s disciples use their knives, and within a flash of a second, slash the throats of the guru’s disciples after pulling their hair from the back of their heads to stretch their necks. A stream of blood flows from each of their necks while they claw the muddy floor of the ashram in pain. After a few minutes, each of the injured disciples gives up his struggle to fight for his breath.
The young aghori and his followers apply the blood of their maiden sacrifices on their forehead and complete the Mahakali puja in the blood-strewn ashram.
After the ritual, the young aghori and his four supporters proceed on a quest to find a tantric who will guide them in their pursuit of immortality.
During their journey, they keep chanting the following mantra,
Mahakali om hrim shreem klim adya kalika param eshwari swaha.
Chapter 1
It is 2 a.m., a pleasant October night. A bored security guard is monitoring the surveillance screens of the security cameras screening the premises of a three-storey bungalow in South Mumbai. He is playing a game on his android to keep awake. A sudden movement on the screen alerts him.
Outside the bungalow, a lean man wearing a black robe is suspiciously moving around the boundary wall.
“What the hell is he doing at this hour?” mutters the guard and squints to take a closer look at the activities of the suspicious man.
Outside, while moving around, the suspicious man is sprinkling some blood red fluid on the boundary wall and chanting some mantras in a very low hum. He makes three rounds of the house and then removes a vault of human skull from a black cloth bag hanging across his shoulder.
He places the skull cup upside down in a small dish that stabilises it. He dips his hand into the bag again. This time, he removes a paper packet and carefully opens it. The packet has some ash that he pours into the skull cup.
> The security guard monitoring the screens panics. He calls up the guard posted at the main gate.
The main gate guard is fast asleep in the security cabin inside the gate. His muted cell phone begins to vibrate. The vibrations are transmitted violently to the table and the open register on which he has cradled his head, but they fail to awaken him.
The guard inside the bungalow dials the security cabin intercom number. The intercom rings loudly and shatters the serene silence of the night and the peaceful sleep of the guard in the cabin.
The guard awakens with a startle, sweating profusely and breathing heavily. He blinks his sleep-deprived red eyes several times and takes a while to get oriented. He fumbles with the pen in his hand and picks up the ringing intercom.
“Get up you, asshole. Some suspicious person is moving around the house,” the guard monitoring the screen barks into the phone. He then dashes out to alert the other night duty guards.
The main gate guard wipes his sweaty face and shakes his head vigorously to drive away his drowsiness. Now, his eyes are wide open. Dipping his hand in the gun holster secured to his waist, he pulls out his 0.32 long barrelled IOF revolver and surges towards the main gate.
Unlocking the gate from inside, he slides it a bit, just enough to stick his head out. He inspects both sides of the gate. Yellow street lights dimly illuminate the empty road in the dark night. Seeing no imminent threat, he puts his gun back in the holster.
While closing the gate, he gasps. Just outside the gate, a man is lying face down motionless on the road. The guard bends down to check. The man suddenly turns and sits up. He is wearing a black robe and his face is painted in black and white. The guard is taken aback. Before he can comprehend, the man blows the ash from the skull cup into the guard’s face.
The security guard is caught off-guard by the action of the lean man. He makes an unsuccessful attempt to grab the man before feeling dizzy and dwindling on the ground. Within a couple of minutes, the guard is knocked out.
The security guard from inside the bungalow reaches the security cabin with four other guards who are on night duty. All of them rush to the main gate, weapons in hand ready to fire.
The main gate guard is lying comatose at the gate. Sighting no one else outside, they disperse, two on either side, to search around the boundary wall. They notice blood red sprinkle marks on the white boundary wall.
The guard who was watching the cctv footage is now guarding the main gate and attending to the unconscious guard lying there.
One of the guards on the round notices a lot of ash and lemons pierced with pins lying on a red cloth below a nearby Peepal tree.
“Looks like some tantric was around.” He fills in his colleague.
“Tantric?” His colleague looks scared.
They move around cautiously. All four of them meet up again at the main gate. None of them has spotted the suspect.
“Is he alive?” asks one of the guards, staring down at the cataleptic guard.
“Yeah, he is breathing,” replies the guard checking the pulse of the unconscious guard.
“What is the protocol now?” asks another guard.
“We have to wake up Mr Lohana and send this one to the hospital,” replies the guard tending to the unconscious guard.
“Who will bell the cat? Mrs Lohana has quite a temper,” remarks another guard.
The senior most guard takes the responsibility and calls up Mrs Lohana.
In the centrally air-conditioned bungalow, Mr Lohana’s bedroom is on the second floor. In a cosy but huge bedroom, Ram and Sunita Lohana are fast asleep.
Ram Lohana, in his early forties, is 5 feet 8 inches’ tall and weighs around 82 kg. His thick black moustache and bushy eyebrows stand out prominently on his fair face. He is sleeping on his back with his hands on his side and his paunch protruding out.
Sunita Lohana, in her early thirties, is 5 feet 5 inches tall, plump, fair and pretty. Even in bed, she is wearing a cotton saree that is wrapped all around her face. She is sleeping curled up on her side.
She stirs a bit by the noise of the ringing telephone. Realising that the phone is ringing at this unearthly hour, she gets up with a fright. Her first thought is about her ailing parents in Rajasthan. Has something happened to them? She discards the thought realizing that the intercom is buzzing, not the landline.
“Hello.”
“Madam, we have a situation at the main gate.”
“Huh?”
“Could you both please come down urgently?”
She places the phone back and looks at her husband who is sleeping in oblivion, mildly snoring.
She awakens him and explains the situation. They hurry down the stairs of their bungalow. In the dimly lighted living room, they notice that their white-marbled floor is sprayed with a blood red solution. Alarmed, they rush towards the main gate.
Chapter 2
At 6:00 a.m., a 32-year-old Criminal Investigation Department (CID) inspector, Tanvi Yadav, is relaxing on the bonnet of her white Tata sumo gold parked at Marine drive. Her back is rested against the front windshield of her car. She is sipping and enjoying a glass of fresh carrot-gourd juice while trying to catch her breath after her 45-minute jog on Marine drive.
Closing her eyes, she takes a few deep breaths to inhale the pleasant morning breeze blowing from the open sea. The breeze has a cooling effect on the beads of perspiration gathered on her smooth and tanned complexion. Her delicate-featured face, short hair, and neck glisten in the light of the rising Sun.
An 18-year-old boy who sells fresh vegetable juices to morning joggers at Marine drive is pleased to see her. She is one of his few customers who address him by his name, Kabeer. He knows that she is a CID officer and aspires to become one. He idolizes her. She can see the admiration in his beaming eyes.
He keeps a watch around and works as a part time CID informer.
“Get in the car. I’ll drop you to your college.” She flashes a million-dollar smile at Kabeer.
“I still have time. Can’t afford to lose 15 minutes of business time. Besides, if anyone saw me in your car, they’d think I was a criminal. That’ll be bad for business.”
Tanvi laughs and ruffles Kabeer’s hair as he comes to collect the disposable empty glass from her hand. He reminds her of her younger brother who had run away from home a long time ago. He gazes at her tall lean figure, blushes and runs away to attend other customers.
She looks at her watch. Still got 20 minutes. She is wiping the sweat off her face with her napkin when her cell phone rings and displays ‘BOSS calling’.
“Yadav, report to office immediately. You have a missing person’s case,” yelps a strident voice from the other end.
“What? Have I been transferred from homicide overnight?”
“No time for jokes Yadav. The complainant is high profile and has asked for you. Looks like you left quite an impression on your ex-boss.”
“I need my team along then,” replies Tanvi after a few seconds of reflecting.
The person on the other side grunts and says, “Alright. Get on it right now. And you will be reporting to me, not your ex-boss. I don’t want him to lure you back to missing persons department.”
Hmm… insecurity everywhere. A high-profile case! I hope something worthwhile is missing.
She gets into her car and drives back home. She doesn’t want to miss any early clues on the case or get tampered ones. Her usual work attire is a white formal shirt, a pair of black trousers, black blazer and a glock 17 secured in a shoulder holster under her blazer.
In the head office, Tanvi Yadav’s team is all set to take up the case. Her team comprises of sub-inspector Sushant Patil, constables Soma Singh and Ravi Rane, and trainee detective constable Makrand Rajput.
Tanvi Yadav was a 2009 batch UPSC topper when she was selected for a sub-inspector’s post at crime branch, Mumbai. She had aced her physical tests too. She was promoted as Inspector, crime branch a year ago.
After her trainin
g, she had worked for the missing persons department for five years before being transferred to homicide two years ago.
“Into the car, all of you. Updates during the drive,” says Tanvi and tosses her car key to constable Soma Singh.
Soma gleams as she receives the key. Today is her turn to drive. On their way out, Tanvi crosses path with sub inspector Harsh Hegde.
“Heard you just got demoted to missing persons,” he scoffs.
“You mean I just got recommended by someone who admires my impeccable record.”
“Ha! You do live in a bubble, huh?” he says in a condescending tone.
“To each his own.” She throws a watery smile.
They move out.
“How does a sub-inspector dare to talk to you like that?” asks Sushant Patil with a hint of anger in his orotund voice.
“It’s not like that. We joined the bureau together. We are colleagues… or more like competitors. I happened to climb the ladder ahead of him. That’s why he is a little sour.”
“Do you think he plays dirty? There are rumours you know…” constable Ravi Rane stops mid-sentence on seeing Tanvi’s raised eyebrows.
“No way! He hates me, but he is clean,” replies Tanvi.
In the car, Sushant Patil opens a file and summarises the case, “Pari, a 17-year-old girl from Lohana House, Malabar Hill, is missing since 2:00 a.m.”
Tanvi looks at her watch, 7:30 a.m. We have already lost five hours and thirty minutes.
“A suspicious person, probably a tantric, was lurking around the house at about the same time. He knocked a security guard unconscious at the main gate using some ash.
“Some red solution was sprinkled around and within the house. A few tantric objects like lemons pierced with pins, some ash, and a red cloth were found under a nearby Peepal tree.
“The Malabar Hill police has started investigating the case. A forensic team is looking for finger prints and working on the red solution and the ash.”
Tanvi frowns and tries to absorb the facts, “So they realised that the girl was missing at 2:00 a.m., which means that she could be missing from earlier. Lohana House… the elite businesspeople… meaning too many enemies and people who hate them. Ravi, call up the officer in charge at Lohana house and ask him to collect cctv footages from the neighbourhood.”