Just when he had made a name for himself, Babloo vanished. His brother was killed in gang warfare and was found in his car with five bullets pumped into his chest and two in the head. One eye was gouged out and three fingers of his left hand were chopped off. The police started to believe that without Arun’s protection, Babloo too might have been killed.
He re-emerged in 1993 and in just three years carried out a dozen recorded kidnappings in Delhi and Mumbai. His victims included hoteliers, politicians, diamond merchants and film producers. The crimes unnerved the police, but they were even more worried that many were paying ransom to avoid being kidnapped.
By 1996, when Babloo fled the country, such was his repute that several small-time criminals were collecting protection money by pretending to be part of his gang.
Babloo’s character, Abhishek read, had one remarkable trait: despite his fairly prolific run, he apparently never used physical violence. His victims, except in the last and final kidnapping, had always returned unharmed once the ransom amount was delivered. And they always refused to give a police statement.
‘Lunch?’ Maya Srivastava was standing by his side. Abhishek hurriedly closed the page.
‘Yes, please,’ he answered. ‘I’m quite hungry.’
‘Good. Do you like south Indian food?’ she asked and he nodded, quickly erasing his viewing history and shutting down the computer.
‘Arre boss,’ Vivek exclaimed as they walked past the reception. ‘Second day and you are out with the girls. Reporter or Romeo?’
‘Fuck off, Vivek,’ Maya laughed at him. ‘Why don’t you do some work.’ She turned to Abhishek. ‘Don’t mind him. He is a bastard. All journalists generally are – the good ones, at least,’ she said, as they descended the steps and headed towards the restaurant.
They had barely settled down at a table when Maya called out to a young man whom Abhishek had met briefly in the reporting room the day before.
‘Rahul!’
Rahul walked up to their table and dropped his bag. ‘I will order some food and be back,’ he said.
‘He is the nicest guy in our department,’ Maya told Abhishek. ‘Not my type, a bit rustic, but has a refreshing honesty. You should become friends with him.’
‘Is the food good?’ Rahul asked, squeezing into the seat beside Abhishek who was enjoying his lemon rice with curd.
‘Yes.’ He nodded.
‘Okay, first rule of survival in journalism. When your seniors ask you about food and it’s good, hand over the fork.’
‘Learn some manners, Rahul,’ Maya teased.
‘You learn manners,’ he retorted through a mouthful of rice. ‘I am hungry.’
As they ate, Maya and Rahul discussed the dismal facilities and pay at the Express, perhaps for Abhishek’s benefit; a sort of performance to warn the wannabe.
Journalists kept approaching their table to say hello. ‘What’s happening? Is everything routine? Any exclusives?’
Neither side gave anything away. ‘Nope, nothing new. You?’
After the third such drill, Rahul turned to Abhishek and said, ‘I can bet that at least one of these bastards will file an exclusive story tomorrow, and knows it. But look at their innocent faces.’
‘Rahul,’ Maya retorted, ‘would you tell them if you were doing one?’
‘No,’ he admitted and then laughed. ‘We’re a bunch of liars. We only tell the truth to the world.’
Maya rose to leave. ‘I have an interview in twenty minutes. See you guys at the office.’
Over coffee, Rahul gave Abhishek some advice. ‘You could tell boss that you want to cover crime. Vivek is leaving.’
‘Really? Can I?’
‘No harm in trying. Mind you, you’ll have to fill Vivek’s shoes and he is absolutely the best when he wants to be. But talk to Amir. See how he responds.’
As they walked back to the office, Abhishek mulled over Rahul’s frank advice. If Babloo Shankar’s impending return could secure him an internship, might it not make him a crime reporter?
4
I
n 1982, when Delhi was preparing to host the Asian Games, workers from across the country and beyond its borders had swarmed to the city to meet the construction demands. After a week or two of national euphoria and pride, the athletes left. The event was declared a success by the state, the officials packed their bags, the guests and spectators returned home, and the everyday business of the city resumed. But there were many who could not go back.
The invisible workers stayed on, tackling different hurdles and running other races, building their uncertain lives on the banks of a moribund river, not very far from the newspaper offices. Known as Yamuna Pushta, a shanty town grew, housing at its peak, over a hundred thousand people.
Thirty years later, another sporting event, the Commonwealth Games, displaced them. A six-lane expressway and multi-storey buildings now stood like forgotten memorials to the tin and tarpaulin shacks and the kachcha roads. What took three decades to build vanished in four years of bulldozing, authorized by numerous court orders and choreographed by a powerful state.
The evicted residents of the Yamuna Pushta scattered to the city’s outskirts. Shorn of a protective community, raucous neighbours, the mindful eyes of uncles and aunts, and robbed of livelihoods, the poor became poorer, petty thieves became criminals and criminals aspired to be gangsters.
Matera was born in the Pushta and lived there for twenty-five years with his parents and six siblings before their exile to the eastern stretches of the city, in a wretched, dark room where his mother cursed all day and cried through the night. But he wasn’t the sort of young man to be deterred by a bit of bad kismet or government brutality. His last eight years of work – from running errands to enforcing orders and acting as part-time strongman – had finally resulted in a promotion. He and two associates were now in charge of daily operations at the satta – the betting centre at Kucha Chalan in Chandni Chowk. It was the business hub of gambling in the city and Salim Khan, the boss, dropped by regularly. Matera’s hard work was being noticed. For this small-time crook, things were starting to happen.
Today, he was looking forward to seeing Amir bhai and had taken an hour off from work to meet him at a tea stall opposite Jama Masjid. He walked towards the mosque through the lanes of the old city, eager to tell his benefactor the stories of his dazzling rise.
Amir headed to the meeting place, thinking about his meeting with Uday. His old friend was hiding something, he was sure, but perhaps not very much.
After what he had heard from Abhishek the previous night, Amir had called Matera. If there was anyone in Delhi who would know of Babloo’s return, it was Salim Khan, Matera’s boss and satta king of north India.
Amir decided to take the metro. In the early afternoon, the crowds were thin and the ride would give him time to decide how much he could tell Matera. He liked the boy, but was well aware that young criminals were boastful.
Amir had first met Matera, then barely out of his teens, at a police station in south Delhi. The journalist, serving out his stint in television, was researching a story on gangs that specialized in car theft. Matera and four others had been arrested by the Special Cell, and Amir had arranged to meet them in the lock-up to find out about their modus operandi.
Unlike the sullen hardened criminals who surrounded him, Matera was a born storyteller and Amir enjoyed his company. After his release from Tihar Jail a year later, Matera sought out Amir and took the journalist to his chawl in Yamuna Pushta, introducing him to his extended family. He later told Amir, ‘Your coming made me a hero. Everyone knew you from television.’
Amir kept in touch with Matera, advising him and once in a while intervening on his behalf with the police. While not exactly an informant, Matera kept him regaled with stories of the dark underbelly of Old Delhi whenever they met. His requests were never outlandish and Amir accommodated most. This was the first time the reporter was going to ask for payback.
After
the calm interiors of the metro, Chandni Chowk was a medley of a thousand clashing tunes, each playing to an oblivious audience. Amir stood fascinated, remembering it all. The road was jammed with rickshaws, cycles, scooters and bikes. Two cars had strayed in and their drivers leaned out of the side windows, urging on the traffic through which children dodged. Amir watched a group of schoolgirls walking along the middle of the street, engrossed in conversation, paying no heed to the indignation they caused. An auto-rickshaw came up behind them and honked. One of the girls turned around and wagged her finger at him imperiously before turning back to her friends and their gossip. Amir smiled at the audacity.
On both sides of the street, there were shops laden with food, utensils, items of clothing. Several hawkers pushed their wares. Cobblers, locksmiths and booksellers fought over pavement space for which pedestrians had long ago abandoned hope. Amid the spectacle Amir observed the generational traders, assured of the value of their wares, sedate and unmindful to the demands of a quick sell.
Suddenly a shifty-eyed man wrapped in a shawl appeared at his side. ‘Dollar, sir? Dollar change?’ he whispered conspiratorially, flashing a few bills. Amir shrugged him off and walked briskly towards Jama Masjid.
There was a time not so long ago when Amir frequented these parts after nightfall, once other restaurants in the city closed their doors. The street that led from the old mosque towards the Red Fort served meat and fluffy white naans at prices unthinkable anywhere else in the capital. They catered to the city’s night prowlers who sat on roadside benches devouring spicy lamb keema and tandoori chicken, washing it down with rum and Coke.
These days, Amir made it a point to be home before midnight and rationed his drinking to not more than three pegs of his favourite Old Monk rum. ‘I hardly get out any more,’ he thought as he hurried through a lane barely three metres wide. A boy grabbed at his ankle. ‘Shoeshine, sir?’ Amir pulled away and kept walking, weaving through the men and women, the children returning from school and the occasional auto that muscled past.
On the increasingly rare occasions that Amir crossed the invisible line of the society he inhabited – from the cappuccino chains to the five-rupee tea stalls – he felt a pang of disgust with himself. In bureau meetings he bitterly complained about reporters who viewed the city from a bird’s-eye perspective, and yet he risked joining their ranks. ‘If you don’t know what ordinary people feel when bus fares go up, do television journalism. I need reporters, not Honda owners,’ he would rage. Amir knew that he too was losing touch and his outbursts were perhaps as much against himself as at his reporting unit. ‘Maybe, Mihir-da,’ he confided in his editor, ‘the real city is the one which my journalists operate in. I am the one who is in the wrong.’
He spotted Matera through the flow of traffic and waved. The boy’s hair grew longer every month, even as he got skinnier, Amir thought. By the time he crossed the street, his tea was ready and Matera was standing next to him, proffering a Classic Mild.
‘No … Given up smoking,’ Amir said, holding the boy affectionately by the shoulders.
Matera was astonished. ‘Getting old, bhai?’
‘Keeping young.’ Amir took the cup of tea and greeted the shop owner as Matera and he sat down. ‘How are you?’ he asked Matera.
‘I am fine,’ Matera replied, and quickly launched into details of his new job and career prospects.
Amir listened, enjoying the stories and waiting for the right opening.
Matera began to speak about Salim Khan. ‘He comes regularly, in fact almost every day. I report directly to him now. I’d never realized how much running a satta business could teach you. Things you would never get to learn in banks or in the software business. It teaches you about human beings, you know, people – ordinary people and also the big people. All types come.’
‘Tell me about Salim,’ Amir stepped in.
‘First-class human being, Amir bhai. But also very dangerous. He is respected in all circles, you know. Even by the police. People know him.’
‘Matera,’ Amir interjected, ‘has anything changed in recent times? Anyone new coming?’
Matera looked at Amir, one eyebrow raised. ‘New? No. What do you mean?’
‘Nothing,’ Amir replied. ‘Listen to me and listen carefully. ‘Who has kept you out of jail all these years? Who has protected you?’
‘You have,’ Matera replied without a pause. ‘I live because you have your hand on my head. What is it, Amir bhai?’ he asked, concern spreading over his face.
‘I don’t know yet.’ Amir drained his cup and stood up. ‘I want you to be with Salim as much as you can and just let me know if there’s anything out of the ordinary. Anything. Can you do that?’
‘I can, but tell me what’s going on.’ His curiosity was piqued and Amir knew that if not checked immediately, the boy would spread rumours.
‘If even a word of this gets out, Matera, I will cut your tongue off,’ the newsman warned.
Ever dramatic, Matera stuck out his tongue and made a slicing gesture. ‘If I speak a word, Amir bhai, I’ll bring it to you myself.’
Amir tried to pay for the tea, but the stall owner waved a hand.
‘No, no, sir. Our honour that you have come.’
‘I’ll go with you to the metro station,’ Matera offered, but Amir shook his head. ‘You are a big criminal now, bastard. Can’t be seen with the likes of you.’
‘Amir bhai, take care. Khuda hafiz,’ Matera said, his face flushed with pride at the compliment.
M
ayank Sharma gathered the papers and files he would need for his presentation that afternoon, then stood in front of the mirror, carefully checking his police uniform. Satisfied, he headed downstairs to join his parents for breakfast.
‘Morning, Baba,’ he said, pulling up a chair opposite his father.
‘Good morning, Mayank. You’re ready earlier than usual?’
‘Yes. New boss has taken over and I have to make a presentation.’
‘Oh, has Uday Kumar joined?’
‘Yes,’ he replied shortly. Mayank liked to keep office matters discreet. But his father, by reading every article on the police force in four newspapers and diligently watching the crime-obsessed television news, kept himself informed.
‘You know you have to meet a girl this Thursday,’ his mother said, bringing in the teapot.
‘Yes, I remember that.’ Mayank had completely forgotten and tried to think through his diary for that day. ‘What time do we have to be there?’
‘At seven thirty p.m., Andrews Ganj.’
‘Okay. If nothing comes up, I will be there.’
For the next twenty minutes, Mayank Sharma, assistant commissioner, Crime Branch, tried to forget his office and the stress of having to choose a girl to marry, and listened to his father talk about the floundering family business. His parents shielded him from the situation as far as possible, but the last two months had seen an alarming decline in their fortunes.
In the late 1990s, as multinational companies started to set up shop in India and the rigid state control on production monopoly was dented, Mayank’s father, Madhukar Sharma, had set up a factory that produced fibreglass body parts for motorcycles. With demand peaking in the 1990s, the business did well. Now, with a slowdown in the global economy, companies were trying to cut corners. Cheaper plastic was replacing his father’s more durable but costlier products.
While he never voiced it, of course, his father perhaps hoped that Mayank would help. But even if he wanted to, the young man did not see how. Being a policeman did not give you the power to secure a contract or force plastic manufacturers to stop producing. Most people outside of the state’s power matrix believed that the police could do anything; these days, even his father.
‘Did you speak to Batra Uncle?’ Mayank asked, once he’d heard about the latest desertion of clients.
‘Yes, but he has no time these days. He never had any difficulty coming and asking for campaign funds. Now he keep
s making excuses,’ his father replied. Ravinder Batra was his mother’s first cousin and an up-and-coming politician in the ruling Congress party.
‘I’ll speak to him,’ his mother intervened. ‘Mayank beta, you have to go, no?’
‘Yes,’ he replied gratefully.
His mother handed him his wallet and lunch box. ‘The driver is waiting downstairs. He refuses to come up and have tea. I keep telling him,’ she said.
‘Okay, will tell him. Bye Ma, bye Baba.’
Mayank descended the narrow staircase of their house in Karol Bagh thoughtfully, wondering how a wife would fit into this family situation. Two years after joining the police service, he still handed over his entire salary to his mother, who saw to it that there was enough in his wallet each morning. They continued to live in their congested west Delhi residence even though he was entitled to official quarters. He was the only son, and as such family life revolved around him. ‘How will a woman I like – a modern working girl – fit into this scenario?’ he would ask his counsellor.
‘Morning, Balbir,’ Mayank greeted his driver and settled into the office jeep with his diary open on his knees. Besides meeting Uday Kumar in the afternoon, his day seemed relatively free. There were two departmental inquiries that he could postpone; only a case file due in court next week would need examination. Good, he thought to himself. He could go through the Babloo case file once more.
Ever since Uday Kumar had given him the tip-off three weeks ago, Mayank had been researching the notorious kidnapper. The secrecy bothered him. Ideally, he would have contacted his counterparts in Mumbai and Uttar Pradesh where cases were registered against Babloo. He would have spoken with former and serving policemen who knew the man’s background. But Uday refused permission. ‘Half the police were on his payroll. You ask questions and he gets to know.’
What caught Mayank’s eye was how simple Babloo’s operations were. The criminal stuck to what he knew. He specialized in kidnappings. His victims were always successful, prominent middle-aged men over fifty or youths aged between fourteen and twenty. The one time he deviated from this and kidnapped a six-year-old girl, the police tracked him down. Sex, or the promise of it, was the trap. Middle-aged men are worried about their waning virility and the young ones are anxious to discover it. Never fails, Mayank smiled.
The Price You Pay Page 4