Head constable Shashi Tamar was warming up his morning cup of tea in an ancient kettle when constable Shubhash came running through the door. "What happened? Some mad dogs chasing after you?" A bleary eyed Shashi asked with mild irritation at being disturbed so rudely.
"Leave all doggy thing aside sir. Take the keys of Gypsy. We have to go to hospital." Subhash answered breathlessly.
Suddenly alarmed at the mention of hospital Shashi asked "Why? What happened?”
"Somebody whacked Bhushan last night when he was on duty. Some labourers found him in that under construction building near Radio Chowk. Now hurry. It looks serious."
All thoughts of his morning tea and traces of sleep washed away from his head, Shashi jumped to his feet and reached for the keys , " What the fuck ! Is he alive? "
"Barely. He has a fractured skull and lost too much blood. "
"Ma ki choot whoever did this! Do you know who did this?" Shashi asked as he asked another policeman to take his place and started running towards the Gypsy parked outside station.
"How'd I know? Let's get to hospital first and hope he can answer the questions.” Subhash replied with no less irritation.
Traffic was still very light and they reached hospital within 10 minutes. A familiar hospital orderly met them in the ward and informed that Bhushan had been taken in for surgery. Swearing again Shashi asked, "Did he say anything while he was conscious?”
"He was unconscious all the time he was here except for 1-2 minutes. I was there then but couldn't make heads or tails of what he was saying."
Shashi snapped, “I don't want YOU to make sense of what he said. Just tell me whatever you could hear."
Slightly taken aback at the outburst orderly looked at the policeman with reproachful eyes before continuing, "Uh...all I could make out was something that sounded like khamba, (pole). He just repeated khamba khamba. Khambe par. (On pole) "
"What? A pole fell on him or what? “Subhash exclaimed.
"No. It can't be a pole. The injury was on side of his head and looked like somebody hit him with some heavy thing. A hammer or a stone maybe." Orderly replied, feeling slightly important.
"Was he robbed?”
"No. He still had his wallet and mobile phone. "
"Hmm! How long will this surgery take?”
"I don't know for sure. 35-40 minutes if there are no complications. But you can't talk to him anytime soon. "
Shashi turned towards Subhash, "Inform SHO sahib and come with me to Radio Chowk. We might find something or someone useful there."
"Leave him alone here?" Subhash asked with horrified surprise.
"I'm calling station. They'll send somebody and inform his family." Pointing towards the orderly he continued, "He'll take care of him till anybody arrives. Wouldn't you?”
Slightly taken off balance orderly replied, "Of course. Of course. That's what I do anyway."
"Good. Come with me right now Subhash. There's no time to waste. "
Leaving the slightly confused orderly behind them, they ran to their jeep and started driving towards Radio Chowk.
Traffic was getting heavy due to morning rush. Even then they managed to travel with a high speed. Soon the radio station, made conspicuous by its tower was within their sights, although it was still 200 meters away.
"Almost there." Subhash mumbled as Shashi prepared to take a turn towards the road that proceeded to Radio Chowk. He was turning the Gypsy when their ear drums were assaulted by the sound of a massive blast. Shashi was so startled that he almost lost control of the vehicle but managed to apply the brakes before anything happened. A column of black smoke arose from the general direction of traffic lights steadily growing in size along with shouts and screams of people.
"What the hell was that?” Subhash asked in a panicked voice.
"What does it seem to you moron. Some bomb blast is that what happened! Call HQ immediately.” Shashi shouted at the constable.
Within moments they reached the sight of the blast and what they saw made them freeze in their strides. The blast was so powerful that more than two meters thick pillar for metro line was nothing except for a small smoking stub of concrete poking from the ground. The two beams supported by the pillar had collapsed, forming a rough V. The 10000 Volt power lines had also snapped and were hanging precariously just 4 feet off the ground. A jam packed bus had taken the brunt of the blast as it waited adjacent to the pillar for green light. All the windows of bus were broken, its roof all but torn off and bodies of dead and injured passengers hung limply. A few cars and two-wheelers had also suffered and were on fire.
But the thing that scared the hell out of everybody was not on ground, but above it. A speeding metro train had left the adjacent metro station and was coming right towards the damaged portion. Although it had lost all power due to damage to the power line, it still had sufficient momentum. Driver of the train had applied emergency brakes and sparks were flying off the metallic wheels. Standing on the ground, people could see the confused faces of passengers inside the train through the glass windows.
Shashi knew that the train had no chance of stopping before and wanted to avoid seeing the tragedy as it occurred. In spite of all his best efforts he couldn't tear his eyes off the horror before him. Right before his unwilling eyes, train reached site of the breach well in speed well above 25 kmph and plunged in to the gap. Its first bogey sailed through the gap for a while and hit the collapsed beam face first. That bogey was compressed to less than half of its original size as rest of the bogeys crushed it from behind. Nobody could hear anything apart from deafening screeching of metal and horrified and painful screams of passengers in the train and the bystanders. But the ordeal was far from over. The train started to list on its side and inch by inch started to slide towards the ground below. Then all of a sudden something that was holding the train on track gave away and all 4 bogeys fell on road below with a huge crash. A number of already damaged vehicles, made immobile after the blast, were crushed as the train fell on top of them.
Evening news listed 145 people dead and more than 14 injured. Many of them in a serious condition.
Condolences and calls for restraint from governments all over the world were still coming in when Mumbai and Hyderabad too were rocked by powerful blasts that killed 109 people combined
Constable Bhushan regained consciousness next morning and easily identified one of the suspects from file photos. The man's name was Mohammed Nazir, a long time member of SIMI. He was last seen at Nepal airport catching a flight to Dubai on a Pakistani passport. There were no leads to other blasts though.
Flames And Arrows Page 17
