ANTI-SOCIAL NETWORK

by Piyush Jha

  ‘And if I don’t?’ Virkar’s voice had a tinge of defiance in it.

  ‘If you don’t, not only will I post your sex video online but I will also post nude pictures of thousands of innocent girls from Mumbai online.’ Virkar sucked in his breath. The mystery man continued, ‘And it will all be routed through an email account that I have created using your identity. By the time you’re able to prove that it is not your account, I will be long gone and your reputation and career will be tainted beyond repair.’

  Virkar realized that he needed to play it cool. ‘Okay, I’ll keep quiet, but I can’t help it if others come after you.’

  The mystery man chuckled again. ‘Come off it, Inspector! There’s no one else who is after me. All your other colleagues are happy that the culprit has been caught and the case is closed. The Anti-Social Network operated by Akhbir has shut down. Everybody else thinks that it was Philo who went on a killing spree to eliminate the members of the ASN using Sagarika’s identity. It is only you who is still poking his nose where it doesn’t belong.’

  Virkar decided to push the mystery man a little further and extract as much information as he could. ‘But am I right or not? You are the mastermind behind the ASN and you used Philo to eliminate all your associates…’

  ‘…and I’ve also eliminated the drug dealer who tipped you off about me.’ Virkar drew in a sharp breath. ‘I knew that would make you see sense. Look, all I am asking you to do is to back off. And I need a reply right now, in a simple yes or a no.’ This time it was Virkar who let the silence stretch out.

  ‘Yes,’ he finally said into the receiver.

  ‘Good decision. Goodbye, Inspector,’ the mystery man’s cold voice rang in his ear for the final time before he cut the line. Virkar looked at the silent phone in his hand and kept it by his side. A childhood ditty began to ring through his head: ‘In pin safety pin, in pin out. Khelna hai toh khelo, warna get out.’

  37

  Naina knocked on the door of Richard’s room in Khotachiwadi. A bleary-eyed Richard opened the door on the third knock. His tired features broke into a smile as soon as he saw the hot take-away cups of coffee in Naina’s hand. ‘God bless you, Naina ma’am,’ he said as he grabbed a cup and took a swig. Naina stepped into the room and gasped. The stench of stale pizza and beer fumes was too much for her at that morning hour. She took a step back out of the room and took a few gulps of fresh air before mustering up the courage to enter again. This time, the smell didn’t bother her as much and she focused her mind on what Virkar was doing inside. She was a little taken aback to see him peering intently at the information that was scrolling on the computer monitors in front of him with the air of an expert. Naina shot a glance at Richard who smiled and shrugged in response.

  For the past twenty-four hours, Richard had been trying to locate the hidden server from which Virkar had received the video clip. As soon as he had returned to Ferry Wharf in the early hours of the previous morning, Virkar had hopped on to his Bullet and headed straight to Richard’s place. He had roused a sleepy Richard and told him about the mystery man’s threat of posting thousands of clips on the internet. Richard had become quite excited on hearing this. ‘Inspector, earlier I had thought that the mystery man was using cloud storage to manage his data but if he really does have that much video data, he would definitely need a server to house the heavy data.’

  Virkar had nodded without completely understanding what Richard was saying as he continued, ‘Obviously the mystery man’s server is hidden and he’s using TOR to hide it further. But I’ve been researching TOR and I’ve found out that there is a way to dig out the location of a hidden server if I’m able to detect even a single hostile TOR node on the deployed network.’

  At that time, Virkar had had no understanding of what Richard was talking about but having spent the next twenty-four hours sitting next to Richard in front of the monitors and watching him systematically comb through thousands of data streams, Virkar had gained some amount of knowledge on what they were looking for.

  Virkar turned towards Naina as her perfumed presence broke his concentration. His eyes were bloodshot and his expression was cantankerous. Naina put the cup of hot coffee in his hand. ‘Drink,’ she said. Virkar gave her a glassy stare for a few seconds and then quietly lifted his take-away cup to his lips. Richard excused himself and stepped out of the room. By that time, Virkar had half-emptied the cup and had begun to resemble his usual alert self.

  ‘So why do you think he’s asked you to wait for a couple of days?’

  Virkar replied only after he finished the entire cup of coffee. ‘I think he’s waiting for some kind of large payoff from somebody he’s blackmailing,’ he replied, clearing his throat. Even as he said this, a thought suddenly struck him. He got up and strode out the main door to look for Richard, who he found standing at the corner of the lane, smoking a cigarette. Virkar hadn’t told Richard about what the mystery man had done to the Bandra Boy. Over the course of the previous day, Virkar had asked the Bandra police station for information on any recent dead bodies found and had been told that Ronald Crasto, a small-time drug dealer, had been found dead in a manhole near his house in Chuim Village. The police had labelled it as an accident, but Virkar knew otherwise. He didn’t want to scare Richard, but he felt responsible for his safety.

  Virkar called out to him, asking him to come back to the room. Richard reluctantly stubbed out the cigarette.

  ‘His phone. That’s what we should be after right now. He must be blackmailing or negotiating with someone so he will be using his phone,’ Virkar announced as soon as Richard stepped back into his room.

  ‘You know I already tried that. His SIM is untraceable.’

  ‘Not the SIM, the phone.’

  ‘I have done that too. He keeps changing phones,’ said Richard.

  Virkar was excited now. ‘But he doesn’t throw them away, does he?’

  ‘Probably not,’ Richard said. ‘I think he just changes the SIMs.’

  ‘I was in a police cyber crime conference sometime back and I remember someone saying that the FBI in the US has developed a program that can track a phone even when it is off,’ Virkar said, looking hopeful.

  Richard shook his head. ‘I’m not sure about that. Normally, turning a cell phone off cuts the connection to the cell phone towers and takes it off the grid. You can only trace it to the last point till it was connected.’

  Virkar rushed back to the monitor. ‘I’m sure you can find the program that can trace a switched-off phone,’ he said as he sat down on the console.

  Naina, who had been quiet up till now, looked at Richard, who wore an amused smile on his face. ‘Wow! Till yesterday he thought I was faltu and now he has as much confidence in me as he has in the FBI?’

  Naina couldn’t help but burst into a peal of laughter and Richard joined her with a loud guffaw. Virkar turned to face them, looking stern. ‘If you’ve both had your fun, can we get back to work?’

  Richard stopped laughing and said, ‘Sure. But leave me alone for a while. I don’t want any disturbances while working.’

  Virkar looked reluctant to get up but Naina rose from her seat and pulled on Virkar’s arm. ‘C’mon, Virkar, you could use a break.’ Instead of answering her, Virkar cast a glance at the brick wall at the far end of the room and then at Richard. Richard shrugged. ‘I’m clean, Inspector. I’m off cocaine.’ Virkar nodded and followed Naina out the door. ‘Call me as soon as you find something,’ he said as he shut the door behind him.

  Richard waited for a minute and took out his cigarette packet. He opened it and shook the cigarettes out. Hidden among them was a fat, rolled reefer. ‘But I’m not off grass,’ he chuckled as he lit up the reefer and took a long drag. Blowing the smoke out from his nose, he said out loud, ‘Thank God for Manali.’ Then he flexed his fingers and got to work on his computer.

  38

  That Richard is good, yaar, thought Virkar to himself as he walked down Bazaar Gate Street in Mumbai
’s Fort area. He was pretending to look for a cover for his cell phone among all the small hole-in-the-wall cell phone shops that dotted the street. Earlier that afternoon, Richard had made a breakthrough. Although he had tried several times to locate the mystery man’s mobile phone, he simply could not pinpoint its location while it was turned off. However, during this exercise he had discovered that the phone had been used three times during the early hours of the morning in the Fort area before being turned off. In fact, the timing of the last instance when it was used in the Fort area corresponded with the call made to Virkar’s phone while he was out on the Koli Queen. Richard had communicated this to Virkar who, in turn, surmised that the mystery man’s base of operations was probably the Fort area, since the unearthly hour when the phone had been used indicated that the mystery man was indoors in an office or a home. Richard had identified the location to be somewhere in the vicinity of the Bora Bazaar in the Fort area.

  Bora Bazaar lies sandwiched between the upscale Victorian buildings lining Pherozeshah Mehta road to the south and the General Post Office and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (commonly known as V.T.) to the north. The majestic D.N. Road borders Bora Bazaar on the west while the venerated Ballard Estate lies to its east. The buildings in this area are jammed together between narrow lanes that are choked with vehicles and people at all times. Small stationary shops jostle for space next to photo labs, mobile stores, electrical and hardware stores, stores selling computer spare parts, wholesale paper merchants and small printing presses. Basically, it is a conglomeration of vendors who supply material to the offices of Ballard Estate and the Fort area.

  Above the shops, the rickety buildings stretch up to three or four storeys as is the norm in the Fort area. These buildings mostly have small cubby-holed offices of small traders, equally small law firms and fly-by-the-night tour operators. In short, the Bora Bazaar is a haven for a small, shady operator or someone with a flighty business.

  A perfect place to operate a sextortion racket from, Virkar thought to himself as he stood feeding the pigeons that nested at the small kabootar khana under the Bazaar Gate tower. From that position, he could look down three streets of Bora Bazaar. What he saw was not encouraging. The mystery man could be anywhere in the tight environs of the labyrinthine streets. For a few seconds, Virkar’s resolve was a little shaken but he pulled himself together quickly as he visualized the mystery man threatening him over the phone. Virkar did not like being threatened. He threw the last of the grains towards the hungry pigeons and turned towards Gunbow Street, making his way past the Jain temple into the heart of Bora Bazaar.

  For the rest of the afternoon and through most of the evening, Virkar scoped out the streets of Bora Bazaar, looking into every nook and cranny that seemed suspicious. His eyes grew tired of scanning the faces of most of the shopkeepers and many of the passers-by. Virkar tried his best to commit each face to memory to the point that he became quite familiar with many of the people who inhabited the bazaar’s teeming lanes. Unfortunately, through the entire exercise, Virkar didn’t come across anything that he felt had even a remote connection to the mystery man.

  By 7.30 p.m., most of the shops had shut down and the crowd on the streets had thinned. As it was a typical Mumbai commercial area, it would soon transform into a ghost town. Virkar sat in a chai shop that was still open, facing the road and eyeing the few people passing by, sipping his first chai of the day. The sweet liquid flowed into his system, giving his body the energy that it sorely needed. Virkar had every intention of patrolling the streets of Bora Bazaar all night. In fact, he welcomed the emptying of the streets as he felt it would be easier for him to spot the mystery man should he come in contact with him.

  The strains of the aarti being performed at the nearby Jain temple wafted into Virkar’s ears. As he downed the last few sips of his chai, the music soothed his tired brain. This, combined with the sugar rush from the chai, refreshed Virkar and elevated his mood enough for him to begin looking forward to his night’s vigil. Suddenly, a thought struck him. He slapped a twenty-rupee note on the sunmica tabletop of the chai shop and rushed out. A few quick strides later, he was standing outside the Jain temple. The aarti and the mangal deevo were in progress and Virkar could hear every note loud and clear. He pulled out his cell phone and dialled Richard’s number. A few rings later, Richard picked up.

  ‘Hello, Richard.’

  From the other side, Richard replied, ‘I can’t hear what you are saying. The temple music or whatever that’s playing behind you is too loud.’

  ‘Hold on,’ Virkar replied and walked over to a spot about a hundred yards right of the temple. ‘Now can you hear me clearly?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Richard confirmed.

  ‘What about the aarti music? Can you hear that?’

  ‘Yes, faintly.’

  Virkar now spoke in a measured tone. ‘Richard, I want you to go to Google maps for the Bora Bazaar area and mark a spot for me.’

  ‘Wha…what? I don’t get you.’ Richard was confused.

  ‘Just do as I say. Download the map and mark the New Badariya Guest House, approximately a hundred yards from the Jain temple.’ Saying this, Virkar walked back towards the temple and went approximately a hundred yards down to the opposite side. He now stood in front of a ramshackle office block past the post office. ‘Can you still hear the aarti?’

  ‘Yes. Again, it’s quite faint,’ Richard replied, wondering what all this was about.

  ‘Then mark the Dhotiwala building too.’

  ‘Inspector, I’ve done as you said. But why I am doing this? Please explain,’ Richard asked, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.

  ‘Because of the aarti,’ replied Virkar, sounding triumphant.

  ‘Have you suddenly become religious?’ Richard asked.

  ‘No, my young friend. I already am,’ Virkar replied. ‘I just remembered that the same aarti was playing in the background when the mystery man was speaking to me that morning.’

  Richard drew a sharp breath. ‘That means...’

  ‘Yes. That means our man’s adda is located somewhere within a hundred yards of this temple in any of the four directions.’

  Richard was excited too. ‘So what are we going to do now?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve done my bit. Now you’re going to do yours,’ said Virkar. ‘I want you to tap into all the working mobile phones in this area—there shouldn’t be too many during the night—and I want you to listen for keywords like “kill”, “photos”, “pics”, “nude”, etcetera.’

  ‘That’s a huge task,’ said Richard.

  ‘Then you’d better get started, shouldn’t you?’ said Virkar.

  39

  The Milk Bar Cafeteria was a small restaurant that had a permanently makeshift look about it, perhaps because of the fact that it functioned out of a seven by thirty feet gali space between two adjoining buildings in Bora Bazaar. This kind of gali space between buildings was normally used as unofficial urinals for nearby shop workers and passers-by. But in the early ’70s, Shamsher Wahid, the enterprising owner of the Milk Bar, had spread a long strip of tarpaulin about eight feet above the ground and along the entire thirty-feet-long gali length. He had then placed some second-hand plastic tables and chairs that he had acquired from Chor Bazaar under the tarp. At far end of the gali, he had put in some wooden counters and a couple of gas burners and lo and behold, the gali space had been converted into the Milk Bar Cafeteria. The only thing new that Shamsher had invested in was a tin sign that hung above the entrance proudly proclaiming the name of the restaurant in English lettering. Over the past forty years or so, the tarpaulin had changed to cement sheets and the chairs and tables had changed to sunmica. Shamsher Wahid, too, had put on twenty to twenty-five kilos and now sat on a small counter right near the entrance of the Milk Bar staring at the passers-by and at each customer that came into his little gastronomic claim to fame.

  As luck would have it, after speaking to Richard, Virkar walked towa
rds the east from the Jain Mandir and stopped right in front of the Milk Bar’s entrance. Shamsher was just about to lock up the makeshift cast iron grill gates that served as the only security barrier for the cafeteria. He made the mistake of asking Virkar to move on. Virkar, in turn, demanded to see his ‘eating house’ license. Shamsher, in the manner that he dealt with these requests normally, extended a hundred-rupee note towards Virkar. From that moment on, he became Virkar’s whipping boy. Under the threat of booking him for trying to bribe a police officer and also for obstructing a police officer in his line of duty, Virkar not only got Shamsher to open up the restaurant, but also make him a fresh plate of chicken biryani. Shamsher, knowing when he was beaten, meekly went about following Virkar’s every order.

  Just as he was about to finish his dinner, Virkar received a call from Richard. ‘Inspector, I’ve hacked into a program that allows me to monitor a phone even from a mobile location.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Virkar asked, puzzled.

  ‘It means that I can monitor the mystery man’s phone from my laptop.’

  Virkar lit up. ‘Then what are you doing in Khotachiwadi? Come here immediately. Head straight to the Milk Bar Cafeteréa near the Bora Bazaar fire station. My friend Shamsher, the owner of the place, has very kindly offered to let us use it as a base for our operations tonight.’ He cocked an eyebrow towards Shamsher, who looked like he was going to cry but nodded his head instead.

  Twenty minutes later, Richard was digging into hot chicken biryani while Virkar was marvelling at the program on Richard’s laptop that not only monitored all the lines in use in the given area but also had the capability to phonetically recognize the words being said. Through mouthfuls of biryani, Richard explained that each time any of the specified words were spoken; it would show up in writing along with the phone number and its location on a map.