What happened? Prakash too, turned his face and found a policeman standing behind him with a cunning smirk. His eyes went towards the name badge stuck on his chest. Mohan K. Lohiya. So, this is the gentleman Ashish was praising so much. Nice to meet you, Sir. The sub-inspector looked middle-aged, with a thin moustache and a protruding belly. He was staring at Ashish the way a porn DVD seller stares at a school kid at his counter. The poor guy seemed to have stopped breathing for a moment.
“Bolo Ashish Bhai! What do you want to know about the Afroz case?” the sub-inspector said, patting Ashish’s back. It sounded more like a slap. “Once in a blue moon our Ambala figures in national news. And look at today. I have given four interviews since morning, you know?”
Ashish heaved a sigh of relief and winked at Prakash. He began with the usual carrot. “Arey Sahib, our channel has one of the largest TRPs in North India. When we mention your name in our news bulletin, the world will know.”
He introduced Prakash to the sub-inspector, who started speaking straightaway. “Let me summarize the case for you,” he began his oft-repeated speech from previous interviews during the day. “As you must be aware, that this Mujahid gang had taken the responsibility of killing Nitin Tomar.”
Prakash was amused to hear the word “gang”.
“We believe Afroz was the man who shot Nitin dead,” the man said.
The words hit Prakash like a jet of cold water. He believed that Afroz would turn out to be a small cog in the wheel called Mujahid-e-Bashariyat. But according to this man, he was the exceptional sniper who blasted Nitin’s head from a kilometer.
Mohan continued, “Although Afroz had no criminal history, he was actively supporting Islamic extremism. He seems to be a very disturbed individual, evident from the contents of his laptop. Our team gathered many videos of graphic violence and obnoxious speeches by extremist leaders from his laptop. He also used to write blogs supporting Jihad and Islamic law.”
“Just like every other brainwashed terrorist,” Ashish said.
“Yeah. He had also hidden an AK-47 in his bathroom,” Mohan said, nodding in agreement. “But the biggest clue which connects Afroz to Nitin Tomar is an envelope found in his cupboard. It contained a few printouts containing news stories related to the Geetanjali school massacre. There was an A4 size photo of Nitin along with a few close-up photographs of the Allahabad court.”
Prakash tried to speak, but was cut short by Mohan. He raised his voice to put forth his point. “Besides, we also found a bus ticket for Delhi-Allahabad in Afroz’s kitchen dustbin. The date of travel was only two days before Nitin’s murder. There was a return ticket also. Same bus. Only the date was a day after the attack,” he said, and took a deep breath of contentment.
“You got all that from his house?” Prakash asked. “Don’t you think it is just plain stupid of him to keep all that evidence at his home? That too when he was supposedly so much in panic that he was smoking and drinking like a fish.”
“You read all that in the newspapers?” Mohan asked.
“I have my own sources.”
“To hell with your source,” he spat. “What’s your point exactly? Someone planted all that evidence in his home and in his laptop? Are you kidding me?”
“I don’t know.” Prakash shrugged. “I am just wondering whether Afroz is just a side-actor or the main actor. How did you arrive at the conclusion that he is the assassin?”
Mohan looked almost offended. “You are an awful cynic Mr Prakash. We are so near in solving this case and you still look unconvinced. No wonder reporters never write anything good about the police,” he complained. The next moment he had a smirk on his face. “But, I have another piece of evidence to take care of doubters like you.”
“Is it the gun found in the pond?” Ashish interjected.
Mohan nodded in response, his smile widening. He wasn’t going to be bullied by condescending reporters.
What the…? Prakash turned his head towards Ashish. He was hearing about this angle for the first time. “Which gun are you talking about?” he asked him. This guy has not informed me of some other development in this case.
“Oh… I am really sorry Prakash. As we have met just an hour ago, I wasn’t able to tell you about all this,” Ashish replied in an apologetic tone. “Actually, this is a separate incident. Two nights ago…”
Like a desperate co-host in a TV show, Mohan interrupted in between, not letting Ashish take his glory away. “I’ll tell you what really happened. But you guys will have to give our police station the credit in your news. Especially the people who deserve it the most,” he said, hinting at himself.
He continued, “Actually, a couple of nights ago, some people saw a man throwing an object in the pond near the railway bridge. After hearing about the death of Afroz and all the hue and cry on the news, one man approached us with this information. He said that he wasn’t able to have a clear look at the culprit’s face in the darkness. He couldn’t gather enough courage to confront him either. Now, with so many things happening in Ambala, even such a minor incident could be suspicious. So, we didn’t waste a minute. We asked the Division for some scuba divers. Just a few hours ago, the scuba divers found an aluminium case containing a Barrett M107 long range rifle, the one used by snipers.”
Good heavens. Is this the same rifle that was used to kill Nitin? Prakash was getting restless.
“I know what you are thinking about Prakash babu,” Mohan said with an all-knowing smile. “We are also thinking of the same. Not every day you find a costly sniper rifle being thrown down a bridge. That too in Ambala. So I guessed that the rifle must have been used in some big mission recently. I thought it might be the gun used in the Nitin Tomar murder.”
Prakash tried to recall the number of times Mohan began his statements with an ‘I’. Ashish’s observations about the man were turning out to be correct. He was indeed a certified moron.
“Have you done a ballistics test on the gun?” Prakash asked.
“It’s with the central forensics team right now. But I strongly believe that the bullet that killed Nitin will match this gun.”
“Does Afroz have a history of sharp-shooting? He has to be an ace sniper to carry out a hit like that,” Prakash said.
“You will not yield, will you?” Mohan said, shaking his head. “I suggest you go to your hotel room and watch the TV. An hour ago I saw a piece of breaking news on a news channel. It said that Afroz was a good shooter during his NCC days.”
“Firing 303 is different from firing an impossible shot from a long range rifle.”
“That is true. But who knows, this guy could have got picked up by a militant organization and then trained in some fucking Jihadi camp,” Mohan replied, sounding exasperated with the cross-questioning.
But, Prakash was far from convinced. It’s raining evidence in Ambala. Too easy to believe.
There was an uncomfortable silence for a minute. It was broken by Ashish. “What about the cocaine? Do you know anyone who deals in cocaine in Ambala?”
“Well, I’d have to say I’m surprised myself. Cocaine is big news in Ambala. Death because of cocaine overdose is a bit too much to digest. But, you know, these terrorists have their own supply networks for everything. They don’t rely on the local peddlers. This guy must have in some real tension and paranoia after committing the crime. He was full of smoke, alcohol and cocaine.”
Clever. Very clever. Prakash couldn’t help admiring the way the perpetrators had gone about their business. A terrorist on drugs was not a rarity. They often opted to get high before carrying out their attacks. It made them less scared and more ruthless. Even Ajmal Kasab and his team of murderers took Amphetamines before they caused the mayhem in Mumbai during the 26/11 attacks.
“When was the last time you came across a terrorist who died of drug overdose?” he asked, aiming the question at the sub-inspector as well as at himself.
“Frankly, I have never seen one. But then I’m also seeing a terrorist for
the first time in my life,” Mohan replied with a chuckle
“Did he have craters on his arms… near the veins?” He remembered seeing them on a junkie’s arms in one of his previous cases.
“For what?”
“Well, if you’re an addict, you keep on injecting yourself day-in and day-out. That creates a lot of spots and small craters.”
“I am not sure I saw anything like that.”
They discussed the time and manner of Afroz’s death for a few more minutes. The autopsy report was to come in a day on priority basis, so Prakash thought there was no point in spending more time with this sub-inspector. Asshole. So full of himself.
One thing was clear to him – Nitin’s murder was a conspiracy, which was shrewdly covered up under an organization called Mujahid-e-Bashariyat. The lone link to this outfit was also now gone with Afroz’s death.
Someone somewhere was running the show quite magnificently. It was like a two-sided jigsaw puzzle. When one side looks perfectly assembled, the opposite side is hopelessly jumbled. The world was presently looking at the make-believe representation of order. Prakash was looking at its other side. The chaos. And the people behind the chaos.
I’m going to get you, he thought, a rush of adrenaline sweeping his body. It was time to roll up his sleeves and get dirty. He took out his mobile phone and dialled a number.
11
New Delhi
Seema re-read the mail she was about to send:
Subject: Regarding your mail to Nitin
Hi,
I’m an acquaintance of Nitin. I know you had tried to warn him of the dangers coming ahead. He had forwarded me your emails before his death, but he was too disturbed in his personal life to pay attention to your warnings. I really want to know what happened with Nitin. And I know you can help me with that. Please reply to me. We can talk.
You can trust me.
Seema
She had taken almost an hour and a half to draft this mail. Writing, editing and then rewriting – trying to sound as gentle and harmless as possible.
It was 11:30 PM. She was done with her dinner. So was Vidisha who was sleeping peacefully in her bedroom. She had helped her kid with her homework for about half an hour before she went to bed.
After her father’s death two years ago, Vidisha had become very quiet and cut-off from the outer world. She was no longer like the naughty, talkative and playful children of her age. She was unusually obedient, much to the anxiety of her mother. She would come home from school every day and remain at home, sometimes watching TV, sometimes talking to her toys. Seema used to feel sad her daughter’s mischievous giggles and yells had stopped after her father’s death.
But then Seema had changed too. She had gone into severe depression after Mohit’s death, often locking herself in a room and crying for hours.
It was only with Prakash’s help that she began pulling herself together. He used to be a close friend who had somehow distanced himself from her with time. But he came back into her life during her most tragic period. She noticed that Vidisha had begun to like his presence a lot. In his company, the little girl would often return to her cheerful self and without him she would regress into gloom.
Seema had always been aware of Prakash’s feelings towards her since her Globe News days. But she always saw her alter ego in him. Both were so passionate about journalism that they often ignored their personal lives. That’s why she knew it would never work out between them. Like two similar poles of a magnet, they would never stick.
Moreover, she had hardly been able to move on from Mohit. He had been the light of her life and now he was gone. Her heart did not have place for anyone else now. There was a void instead, which she had to fill somehow. So, she pushed herself harder professionally. She went on to win many awards over the months, making the world believe that she actually was a ‘superwoman’. But deep within, she still lived with a sense of guilt. Of not being able to make Vidisha forget her past and move on. Of not being able to make peace with Mohit’s absence.
A glance at her screensaver brought Seema back to where she was. She had not yet been able to find any clue to the owner of the email ID. In her mind, she had begun calling the user ‘X’. Presently, the only way to reach X seemed to be through good old email.
She had tried assigning the job of tracing the email ID to a hacker her news channel often hired. But he could not be of much help. It was difficult to trace the email ID owner because the person was using a private IP address concealed by a proxy IP. The hacker was still able to bypass the user’s proxy and get down to the location of the private router. But this was the best he could do. The router belonged to a popular Internet service provider in India, based out of Mumbai. Any further research would need access into its private network. Without the involvement of the police and a warrant signed by the magistrate, she would not be able to know who the sender was.
She studied the mail one last time and then decided to add her mobile number at the end. Just in case X wants to call me. She had first thought of sending the mail from Nitin’s mailbox, but then changed her plans. Mail from a dead man may spook the user. As a work around, she had now created a new Gmail account in her own name and was using this account to send the mail.
After a few moments of hesitation, she clicked on the ‘Send’ button.
Let’s hope somebody responds.
12
1 Am, Ambala City
Prakash stood on the pavement outside his hotel. The road in front of him, usually a busy street in the mornings, was washed completely in darkness in the absence of any streetlights. The weather was cool and pleasing, quite in contrast to the morning heat.
He looked around. Not a single soul moves. A couple of street dogs nonchalantly crossed the street in front. One of them looked at the unknown character standing across the street and gave a half-hearted bark.
He had been standing there for the last 20 minutes. The man he was waiting for had entered Ambala half an hour ago.
While the world slept peacefully, the journalist in Prakash was restless. What he had initially thought to be a small piece of news had now the makings of a profound conspiracy. And the fact that the guy he was after had died under mysterious circumstances told him that he might be in the right direction. But what is that direction?
What he was about to do was quite dangerous and could threaten his career as well. But he was willing to take that risk. Otherwise, this mystery was going to keep him occupied forever. Whenever he was about take a big risk, he would often tell himself that he has seen much worse things in life. To some extent, that was true.
He was once caught in the crossfire between two rival gangs in Goa. He had gone to do an interview with a drug lord of Russian origin known by the nickname ‘Popo’. The don was boasting about how he kept everyone in the system in his pocket, when one of his henchmen had rushed in hollering like a maniac – “Costa gang! Costa gang!” Before they could react, bullets rained on the wall behind them like hailstones. One of the attackers, who later tried to show some bravado by putting bullets into dead bodies, hit jackpot when he found Prakash alive. Thankfully, before he could squeeze his trigger, his eyes fell on Prakash’s media ID card. “Aila!” the man said and ran over to his boss. Soon, Prakash was shaking hands with the new don. ‘Sometimes, write about our gang also’, the kingpin said. ‘It helps our business.’ ‘Absolutely,’ Prakash replied and then bolted from that place.
Over the years, he had been in many such tough situations that had shaped his reputation as a crime reporter.
He squinted on seeing the headlights of an approaching car, the loud music played in it audible from this far. Looks like him. He started waving his hands. The car slowed down in response. He walked towards the car and stopped on the driver’s side.
A lean guy wearing thick-rimmed specs was at the wheel. He wore cargo pants and a T-shirt with a massive skull-and-bones graffiti drawn over it. Thin beard and moustache, shoulder length hair tuc
ked behind his head in a ponytail, with a few strands of hair dangling over his face – he looked like a rapper, minus the jewellery.
“Hey, hey, hey. Stop the music!” Prakash said, trying desperately to keep his voice low. “The whole Ambala city will know that the great fucking Mrinal is here.”
Mrinal, grinning, opened his door and said in his usual hip-hop style of speaking, “It gives me the fuel to work through the night, baby.” He turned off his music player.
“Don’t come out of the car. Be seated. We need to talk,” Prakash said. He moved towards the other side of the car, got on to the front seat and closed the door.
“What’s this?” Mrinal whined. “I thought you’d have booked a room for me.”
“Yes, I have. But we need to go somewhere.”
“Go? Now? Man, it’s past 1 o’clock in this ghost town and you’re telling me we are going somewhere? I’ve been driving for last three hours. Even night-owls like me need rest,” he protested and then added with a wink, “By the way, we aren’t going for a date. Are we?”
“Buddy, I think I heard correctly when you said you’re willing to work for Globe News as an external consultant on this story. You’re getting paid by the hour. So, why not start talking about something serious.”
“OK. OK. Begin.”
“We are going to get into Afroz’s house now.”
“You got permission from the police so quickly?”
“No. We are going on our own. Without anybody’s permission.”
“Are you crazy? The police would have sealed that place. If we get caught, we’ll get our asses fried in jail.”
“I know, but we can’t wait. I have a hunch that we are going to find something big there. Something that these lousy policemen will never find, because they don’t suspect anything fishy in this case.”
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