by Fawaz Jaleel
“So far, we have reasons to suspect his roommate and trainer, Mukul … you know if there was any … umm relationship with Piyali.” Ila stuttered as it was uncomfortable to raise such an allegation against a man who the lady in front of her was engaged to.
“I understand that you have to probe all angles and, of course, the Ashraf you know is from reports, media, and people. I know the man. His relationship with Piyali was strictly official as far as I know and I trust him.” Parveen just like her father had the skills to hide her emotions even while clarifying something as scandalous as that.
“I am sorry you have to go through this,” Yohan showed his compassionate side while looking into her eyes and continued to question. “We are yet to track his friend, Chirag Doraiswamy, whose presence has raised questions. The two college kids led us to Bashir Hashmi. We also have a lead on Tilak Singh and we wanted to check if you know anything about Ashraf’s visit to Siwan and his meeting with laborers and landless people in the area.”
“I haven’t met Chirag and Ashraf never mentioned him so I don’t know how deep their friendship was. Ashraf was interested in multiple issues so Siwan might be about what you mentioned. He just wanted to take people out of their suffering.” Parveen looked at Yohan expressing her concern at Ashraf’s loss.
“Oh, you don’t think Chirag and Ashraf are friends?” Ila probed.
“If they were really close, he should have mentioned Chirag to me,” Parveen responded.
“That’s a fair point and Chirag is one of our lead suspects too in this case,” Yohan replied and went on to ask, “what about Bashir Hashmi?”
“That I can answer,” interrupted the maulvi. “He came to meet us a week before Ashraf’s death and asked me if I could mediate the issue. The Ashraf I know and raised would never back out if he was fighting for a true cause. So, I refused.”
Ila continued, “Did he say anything unusual? Piyush mentioned that he threatened you.”
“Yes. I vividly remember him saying that Ashraf is overstepping his boundaries and infuriating very powerful and important people. He didn’t create any scene but he said that he would be forced to seek their help to tame Ashraf.” The maulvi tried reminiscing about the conversation.
“Did he use the word tame?” asked a diligent Ila.
“He said something like it's high time that Ashraf is taken care off. More than the words, it was the way he said it that sounded like a sugar-coated threat,” the maulvi replied.
“Do you know of any business partners or powerful people in Tamil Nadu and Delhi who back Bashir?” Yohan questioned, hinting at the tankers and the attack on Priyanshu.
“He is a powerful man with connections to the BNC. I am sure there are people in the ecosystem who would help him.” Maulvi had made a pointed allegation.
Yohan was impressed that the maulvi didn’t choose to mince his words and didn’t shy away from mentioning a powerful political party that may be involved. The team further questioned the maulvi and Parveen to check if they knew anything more about Ashraf’s visit to Siwan or other places. The father and daughter stuck to their claims about Bashir and Ashraf’s potential interest in the land rights issue in Siwan.
“Did Ashraf have any weakness that you were aware of?” Yohan specifically asked Parveen.
“Weaknesses. Nothing major. He used to get very uncomfortable with too much attention,” Parveen answered, after giving it a good thought.
“Pardon me if this is too personal but when was your wedding scheduled?” Yohan asked as they prepared to wind up the conversation. Parveen looked at her father who had chosen her life partner and expected him to answer. He started explaining, “So we were planning to do the engagement on...”
He was suddenly interrupted by Ila. “Yohan sir, we have some information regarding Ashraf’s travel history.”
“Oh Good. Let’s discuss it back in the guesthouse?” Yohan responded.
“Yeah, but this is Code blue,” Ila responded with urgency. They used these codes in front of others to indicate the level of urgency. Code blue stood for very urgent and Code red would be “drop everything else and focus on this.” If something is code green, then it can be taken up later.
Yohan moved toward Ila and they went outside the meeting room. He asked, “What’s up?”
“So, I asked our analyst to prepare a list of places Ashraf visited in the last few months before his death,” Ila started.
“Okay and...”
“He visited seven places including Siwan,” Ila continued and added, “I had asked the analyst to make a list of places visited by Chirag Doraiswamy too.”
Suddenly, Yohan’s interest peaked on hearing Chirag’s name. He had his trademark index finger scratching his forehead reaction that he did when something crucial was happening. He moved closer to Ila and asked, “What’s the match percentage in terms of places visited?”
“Chirag visited more places. But Ashraf to Chirag’s visits is clean 100%,” Ila delivered a shocker.
“What? So Chirag had already visited the same places and Ashraf went after a month or so?” Yohan reiterated to confirm.
Chapter 11
Don’t Put All Your Leads in One Basket
Ila and Yohan were on their way back to the guesthouse and urged their driver to get them back at the earliest. There was an unusual deafening silence in the car on their drive back as opposed to a conversation about their Code blue lead, except when Yohan called Sukumar to check on his estimated time of arrival at the guest house. Ila was fiddling with her tab, reluctantly entering the details of the conversation with the maulvi and his daughter. Yohan, on the other hand, opened the car window to let in some breeze and cool his head in lieu of the multiple directions the case was taking. Ila used the time and silence to check the umpteen number of missed calls and messages from her single mother, who was worried sick about her daughter’s health and marriage. As Ila scrolled through her WhatsApp window, she saw photos of multiple potential suitors that her mother had sent. Ila was originally from Bihar but spent her entire life in the crowded mohallas of Old Delhi that smelled of ithar (scent used by Muslims), meat of all kinds, and the pungent smell that originated from the accumulation of food waste outside hotels and street-vendor kiosks. Her life, in a sense, was a stark contrast to the elite upbringing of the south-Delhi man who sat next to her. But that’s the beauty and essence of India—the starting lines and hurdles of the races may not be the same but there is hope and scope to end up at the same finishing line albeit the hierarchy of struggle.
It wasn’t easy for a Muslim girl to convince her single mother and extended relatives to “allow” her to work for the CBI. Of course, it wasn’t easy for Yohan either to convince his father to let go of the pleasures of his privilege and corporate inheritance to join the central institution. But what set these difficulties apart were the socioeconomic barriers and the intensity of the struggle for the two people. They were both dealing with a similar problem even now. Both their families were looking for prospective suitors for their children and these two colleagues didn’t want to divulge their attention from their respective careers. Then again, the hurdles that Ila had to face as compared to Yohan was more daunting.
As the journey continued, Yohan opened a notepad app on his phone and wrote the names, “Ashraf and Piyali” on two ends. Below Ashraf, he listed Bashir, Tilak Singh, and Chirag as suspects, while on Piyali’s side, he added Mukul and Chirag. This list was predominantly based on the set of evidence and information they had gathered so far. He also created a list of witnesses and listed Dinesh Singh and Priyanshu. In another box, he wrote truck driver, dealer who bought the trucks, and CI Raj Pratap and placed question marks next to them. In a section listed as motives, he wrote “unknown” under Chirag, “tutorial mafia” under Bashir, “political vengeance - canvasing MCPI voter base” under Tilak Singh, and “infidelity and relationship issues” under Mukul. In the last section, he listed Methods of Murder as the title and listed “tanker
truck accident” under Ashraf and “unknown/suicide” below Piyali’s name.
As the car neared the guesthouse, Yohan finally broke his obmutescence, or maun vrat as they say in Hindi. “You know what’s the problem of investigating a politician’s murder?”
“I can list at least fifty,” came Ila’s response.
“I am sure,” he agreed with her. “These guys have a lot of foes and enemies but they are forced to smile and pretend as if everything is hunky dory. It’s been less than ten days and we have already seen a number of conflicts that Ashraf was entangled in. None of these are out in the open. Even if they are, it is brushed off as speculation.” Yohan stopped at the right time as it could have turned into a rant.
“I wonder what’s coming next. Hopefully, we are going to get some clarity on the Chirag angle,” responded an optimistic Ila.
“Call Raj Pratap also and see if he has finally managed to get any leads on the truck driver and the dealer who bought the six trucks. If he has absolutely nothing, just send him a brochure with alternative career choices.” Yohan’s tone and words reflected his discontent with their local police contact.
“I did check his travel records, phone calls, and everything after you told me to. Nothing glaring yet. Also, do you think he is not investigating that angle clearly to shield someone?” Ila asked.
“He is not that smart a chap also. But I plan to pay him a visit soon,” Yohan responded.
The car dropped them at the entrance. The sun had already made way for the moon to usher in a gentle cold wind and the urge for a hot beverage. Before even proceeding to freshen themselves, Yohan and Ila rushed to the meeting room to review the new set of information. Sukumar was sitting on the living room couch, gently sipping his elaichi tea, dipping glucose-filled Parle-G biscuits, and enjoying its texture melt in his mouth.
“Suku anna, you don’t need that. You are already a genius. Come to the meeting room quickly. Get that packet of Parle-G with you,” Yohan told the seemingly relaxed Sukumar.
Sukumar also joined the “haste party” and lazily pushed himself to the meeting room. Ila quickly set up the projector and opened her email to present the data from the analyst.
“What are we looking at?” Yohan enquired.
“So, I assigned an analyst to track Chirag’s whereabouts before he absconded from the scene. I also got her to check Ashraf’s travel history. We have some solid matches,” came Ila’s enthusiastic reply.
“Oh, okay. I also want to brief you all about my visit to meet Bashir’s PA,” Sukumar reminded his team.
“Yes. Let’s do that after this. I also want you to follow up on Priyanshu. Get in touch with the hospital and speak to the doctors,” Yohan instructed Sukumar. “Now come on, Ila. Show us what you have gathered.”
Ila referred to the mail from the analyst. It was a map of Bihar with location coordinates and the approximate amount of time spent in the areas, based on mobile tower information and location settings. There were other data points too like distance between the locations, estimated dates of visit, etc.
“Sir, so Chirag’s phone was last active on 5th January, less than 4 hours after Piyali’s death.”
“But didn’t he check out of the hotel on the 5th morning itself?” Sukumar questioned.
“Yes, as per the hotel records. But his mobile data suggests that he was in Begusarai till evening,” Ila responded.
“What was his last tower location?” Yohan asked.
“It was on the Barauni highway. To be precise, a couple of kilometers away from Ashraf’s accident location,” Ila gave the details.
“Why would he go back to that location?” Yohan’s mind, much like his teammates, was boggled with multiple questions. But Ila wasn’t done yet. “Let’s move on to the places visited by Chirag.”
“You said he visited more places than Ashraf, right? And Ashraf had been to most of these places. Before or After?” Yohan sought clarity.
“First Chirag visited, and then Ashraf followed,” Ila clarified and went on to explain Ashraf’s trail. Ashraf was killed in a road accident on 16 December 2020. Prior to that, he had visited Siwan. In Siwan, he spent the maximum time in a block called Hassanpura. Based on census 2011 and the extrapolation of data for current times, the block is said to have a 60 percent cultivator population and around 4 percent agricultural labor. He had visited Siwan on December 7th. Prior to that, he visited blocks and panchayats in other districts too. The report from the analyst showed that Ashraf had visited the following districts: Aurangabad, Samastipur, Munger, and Bhagalpur. In Bhagalpur, Ashraf spent the maximum time in Nathnagar, one of the assembly seats in the 243-seater Bihar assembly. He also went around a few blocks in Gopalpur and Bihpur. In Aurangabad, he spent most of his time in the crowded areas and residential settlements of Sabzi bazaar, Maharajgunj, and other areas like Nawadih and Ganj Mohalla.
Sukumar was compelled to interrupt and clarify since the team was looking into Tilak Singh and MCPI’s involvement in the case, “Are Bhagalpur and Aurangabad even MCPI strongholds?” Sukumar’s question was toward Yohan considering his deep knowledge in contemporary Indian politics.
“I can't obviously remember each assembly seat like Nathnagar but the last time Bhagalpur had a strong MCPI presence was in the late 1990s and early 2000s,” Yohan activated the GK cells in his brain yet again.
“And Aurangabad?” Sukumar asked.
“Again, the same time period. So usually, they would not have much presence in the Lok Sabha elections considering their not-so-strong national presence but they manage a few assembly seats in the state elections. Of course, in 2020, after their coalition with the BNC, they performed very well,” the team leader answered.
“I am asking to see if we have anything strong on MCPI here?” Sukumar was clear where he was going with this.
“I got that and we need to pursue that lead. Of course, the communist party has pockets in Bihar and a sizeable vote base, so we cannot ignore the possibility of their vengeance against Ashraf who positioned himself as a better alternative. Ila, go ahead and complete.”
“Yes, sir. So, in the remaining Munger and Samastipur districts, it was mostly residential areas in certain pockets. Also, he visited all these places between November 27th to December 8th. Just over a week before his death.” Ila concluded her findings on Ashraf’s visits.
Yohan looked at the chart for a while and at one point, his eyes had widened as if he had an insight based on what was in front of him. He halted the presentation and used his phone to do some secondary research. Ila and Sukumar were well aware of Yohan’s “thinking zones” and they rarely interrupted when he was in his brain palace processing the data, along with his knowledge on several subjects. He fiddled around with his phone for about 3 to 4 minutes and then looked at Ila. His eyes were focused on her but his mind was elsewhere. It wasn't a stare and Ila wasn’t anything more than a familiar face for him to focus on his thoughts. In the meeting room, Yohan usually occupied the latter end of the room as he liked to see everyone in his sea of vision. After processing his thoughts, he pushed his revolving chair closer toward the front and in proximity to Ila’s computer on the table that was being used for the presentation.
“I have a bad feeling, guys. I have a very bad feeling,” Yohan’s first words after coming out of his thinking zone.
“What is it?” Ila was able to absorb the mood quickly and her heart did beat faster than it did a few minutes ago. Sukumar hated these situations where his analytical skills with numbers and qualitative data couldn’t be of more help and a larger awareness about the setting, place, and incidents was more useful—luckily, something that his team leader had in abundance.
“Ila, you said that Chirag had visited a few more places apart from the ones that Ashraf did, right?”
“Yes, sir.” Ila shook her head in agreement but her eyes were fixed on Yohan, waiting for his analysis.
“So, Ashraf and Chirag visited places in Siwan, Aurangabad, Bhagalpur, Sama
stipur, and Munger?” Yohan asked to clarify once again.
“Yes,” Sukumar nodded as these were listed in the map right in front of them.
“Can I guess the remaining places?” Yohan asked. Curiosity in the minds of people filled the ambience of the room. Ila and Sukumar, in their minds, prepared themselves for the worst possible outcome, i.e., another direction and another lead. It was the last thing that the team wanted to process at the moment. They looked at Yohan as he was going to make his guess.
After having taken his time, Yohan started listing his guesses. He raised one finger starting from the smallest one to count as he listed, “Is it Nawada, Sheikhpura, and Nalanda?”
Ila looked at Sukumar, and then turned to Yohan. She looked at her computer screen which had the list of places. Somewhere, she hoped that Yohan was wrong as it would mean that the bad feeling he got was a false one. Her face wasn’t shaken, rather frozen when she said, “Yes, sir. You are absolutely right.”
This wasn’t a competition and Yohan himself didn’t find it very assuring after he cracked this data set. Sukumar was still eagerly awaiting to know the significance of these places and their relation to this case. He looked at Yohan and after gulping a bit of saliva, asked, “What’s it? Come on. Tell us.”
Yohan looked up to his team, dragged the laptop closer to him, typed a search query into google, and turned the laptop toward them. Seeing the result on the screen, Sukumar put his hand on his forehead wailing at the new lead in this case. Ila worked out various permutations in her head but this didn’t occur to her. She took a deep breath knowing that they had to find Chirag to get more clarity on this.
Yohan started explaining to give his team more perspective. “It was in 2018 around March when a series of violent incidents started taking place in Bihar and now, we overarchingly call it the Bihar riots of 2018.” Sukumar and Ila let out a collective sigh as this new turn of events meant many things—more powerful suspects, political pressure, media attention as if it wasn’t enough already, and more hurdles to crack this case.
