Bihar Diaries

by Amit Lodha

  ‘Hi, how are you? I’m not in my office, and I think I kept a piece of paper that had an address scribbled on it in your Mills and Boons novel,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t worry. I will get it and tell you the address,’ said Tanu cheerfully.

  Within a minute, she read out the address to me. I called Inspector Tiwari, a brilliant officer who was accompanying me.

  ‘Tiwari, can we find this place?’ I told him about the tube well and a few other landmarks.

  ‘Sir, this place is quite close by. Let us go,’ said Tiwari.

  After a few minutes, Tiwari and I found the room next to the tube well and entered it. There was no one and nothing inside except for a bed. I yawned and stretched my arms. Suddenly, Tiwari aimed his pistol at the bed and shouted. ‘Baahar niklo, goli maar denge (Come out, or I will shoot you)!’

  A tall, well-built man with huge arms emerged from under the bed. He was carrying a country-made pistol. I was shocked as well as delighted. Shocked because I just could not imagine that such a huge man could hide under the bed, and delighted because it was going to be my first achievement, the first arrest of my career. I shoved the man hard. Convinced that he wasn’t retaliating, I commanded Tiwari, ‘Le aaiye isko, Tiwari (Bring him, Tiwari),’ and started walking towards my Gypsy. Just moments later, I saw Shashi jumping jubilantly.

  ‘Huzoor, kamaal ho gaya (Sir, a miracle has happened). Kirtan has been arrested,’ he said animatedly.

  ‘Where, where is he? Who caught him?’ I asked with a hand on my pistol.

  ‘Sir, woh hi toh hai (Sir, that is him). The man you just arrested.’

  I just could not believe it. Both Tiwari and I had never seen Kirtan earlier in our lives, and here we had arrested the don of Munger without any fuss. We reached the Kotwali thana to a thunderous reception from a huge crowd. Thousands of people came out on the streets to celebrate Kirtan’s arrest.

  ‘Sir, you joined as an ASP just three days ago. How did you arrest such a notorious criminal so quickly?’ asked all the media persons.

  I remained quiet. How could I tell them it was sheer good luck and that my wife had helped indirectly?

  Finally, I said, ‘It was a secret operation. I can’t divulge any more details.’ It became my stock answer to countless questions by the press in the future.

  A few days later, as I was about to leave for a game of squash, I got a call from an informer.

  ‘Sir, Hari Sinha is about to leave his village. He has just hired a car.’

  I was really irritated as I was getting late for my game.

  ‘Do you know which car he will travel in? Or the route he is taking? How will I catch him then?’ I shouted into the phone. When I got no answer, I put it down and turned around to see my wife with a stern look on her face.

  ‘I can’t believe that a game of squash is more important to you than your police duties!’ I tried to reason with her, but to no avail. In any case, I was desperate to arrest Hari Sinha.

  I put on my uniform and asked for some additional force to reach the Safiasarai police station. On reaching the station, I kept looking at the flickering flame of the lantern, waiting for some policemen to arrive. But who cares for an ASP? Things become quite different once one becomes an SP. The SP is a zilla ka malik in common parlance.

  Unable to wait for backup any more, I asked Shashi, my driver, to drive towards Hari Sinha’s village. An old Ambassador car passed us. Instinctively, I asked Shashi to stop the next vehicle. Before I could finish my sentence, Shashi blocked the road and stopped a Maruti that was coming from the opposite side. In a leisurely manner, I got down from my Gypsy, only to hear Shashi shouting, ‘Sir, neeche jhuk jaiye (Sir, duck immediately)!’

  I saw a man brandishing a country-made carbine from the Maruti. Shashi and my bodyguard, Bhushan, shouted and ordered the passengers to get down from the car. The driver and the gun-toting burly guy raised their hands and came out. The guy with the carbine probably realized that he was outnumbered by the police. In any case, he was an easy target for us as he was sitting inside the car. Our backup team, led by Inspector Tiwari, had also arrived by this time.

  ‘Sir, aapko bahut yash likha hai (Sir, you are destined for big successes)!’ said a jubilant Tiwari, lifting me up.

  We had just arrested Hari Sinha in the most dramatic fashion, with me doing practically nothing except sitting in a Gypsy! I became a super cop overnight for arresting a notorious criminal, wanted in about twenty murder and kidnapping cases, close on the heels of the arrest of Kirtan Mishra. That day I realized that I may have failed at IIT, but I was destined to arrest big criminals and succeed as a policeman.

  Back in Shekhpura, Tanu’s phone call jolted me into action. I started worrying about finding suitable accommodation for my family as there was no official residence for the SP. I summoned the town SHO, Rajesh Charan, a strapping young officer.

  ‘Jai hind, sir, I am the brother of your batchmate Anupam Charan. I had also appeared for the UPSC exam,’ he said with a smart salute.

  In Bihar, there are quite a few cases of one brother becoming an IPS officer and another a relatively junior officer. You could call it destiny. I could clearly see the scorn in his eyes. I imagined he must have been thinking that he could very well have been my batchmate in the IPS.

  I instructed him to find a decent house for my family. Within half an hour, he came back triumphantly, as if he had annexed a small kingdom for me.

  ‘Sir, the junior engineer’s house has been lying vacant for years. You can move in right now!’

  The electricity supply was quite erratic in Shekhpura and there was not much the junior engineer could do. A few officials of all government departments work like this, in almost all the states of the country. They will make their own houses in the capital city, get their children admitted to good schools, hire tutors for them and settle their families there. An official will try his best to fulfil the aspirations of his family. This is the dream of almost all middle-class people. The officer will travel up and down to his place of posting, maybe once in a few days. But poor policemen like us do not have any choice. We have to actually stay in our place of posting. We can’t move to and fro and hope that a criminal will be kind enough to commit an offence only when we are in the district. However, in this instance, I thanked the electricity department and decided to shift into the junior engineer’s house.

  Kumar Sir reached the ‘circuit house’ and moved into the adjoining ‘suite’ without any fuss.

  ‘Amit, I hope you are no longer angry with the “injustice” meted out to you. I expect to see some action from you now.’

  ‘Sir, you have been my trainer. I will arrest Vijay Samrat soon, just for you,’ I replied cockily. I wanted to arrest Vijay to regain my ‘rightful’ place in the bureaucratic circles. Not only would it boost my ego, it would also be a fitting answer to all my detractors.

  Kumar Sir just looked at me with a faint smile. I had made the announcement as if Vijay Samrat was one of the thousands of deals offered by Flipkart or Amazon. Just a click and presto, Vijay Samrat delivered to your home! Of course, there was no online shopping at that time.

  I reached my office. It was absolutely grotesque. A huge, ugly table stood in the centre with a number of plastic chairs in various colours arranged in front of it. Quite a few files wrapped in red cloth adorned the table. Particularly jarring was the SP’s chair, draped with a huge towel. In many sarkari offices, the boss’s chair is specially covered with a tauliya, a pristine white towel, symbolizing power! A peekdaan, or spittoon, was lying next to the table. I immediately decided the office required an overhaul. I needed a decent workplace.

  I ordered for a furniture catalogue from Patna.

  ‘Huzoor, we don’t have the budget for such expensive furniture,’ the head clerk told me disapprovingly.

  ‘Don’t worry. Just get a local carpenter and ask him to copy the designs. I am sure there must be a talented carpenter in Shekhpura. I have done this in all my earlier po
stings.’ Satisfied with my instructions, I turned to work.

  I summoned DSP Sharma and SHO Rajesh Charan to find out the exact situation in Shekhpura. Both unanimously said that arresting Vijay Samrat was a Herculean task, but one Chandan Singh, a mid-level criminal and a rival of Vijay, could be arrested immediately. His arrest would herald my arrival in Shekhpura. And true to his word, Rajesh produced Chandan Singh in front of me in less than twenty-four hours.

  ‘Sir, badka bhetnar criminal hai!’ said an elated Rajesh Charan. Bihar cops had coined an entirely new word, ‘bhetnar’, for veteran!

  I was not very impressed with Rajesh. Chandan’s arrest with a country-made rifle and some ammunition was too easy, as if he had been waiting in his house for someone to go and get him. It often happens when a new SP joins a district. Some SHOs arrest a few petty criminals, called ‘pocket’ criminals, to impress their new boss. I was seasoned enough not to fall for this ploy. Anyway, my target was Vijay Samrat, not some small-time criminal.

  Vijay was one of the most dreaded ganglords in Bihar. His name was associated with the infamous massacres of the state, which had taken hundreds of lives. He had started out as a small-time goon, but had gone on to become the Veerappan of Bihar. It would require a manic obsession on my part to nab him.

  9

  The Making of a Butcher

  Vijay Samrat was an unusual child. While the other children in his village enjoyed playing hide-and-seek, gilli-danda and swimming in the pond with the buffaloes, Vijay chased chameleons. He was fascinated by their changing colours. But the colour he liked the most was crimson. So he would chase the hapless reptiles and bludgeon them to death. The lizards would writhe in pain and die a slow death.

  Vijay derived a strange pleasure from the macabre. He was a born sociopath who could get violent at the drop of a hat. Other children did not dare come near him.

  He grew up in a poor household in Nawada. His uncle got him a job as a tractor driver. But Vijay realized early that that was not the life he would lead. He knew that he was destined to rule as a king. He started as a pickpocket and soon formed a gang of boys who committed petty crimes, extortions and thefts. The local villagers feared him. His reputation as a troublemaker grew steadily. Vijay got his first big break when a fellow villager asked him to usurp a piece of farmland that belonged to a landlord. The fact that the landlord was quite wealthy and powerful did not deter Vijay from grabbing the land.

  Taking it as a direct challenge, the landlord summoned the most dreaded criminal of his own ilk, Sarveshwar Singh. Vijay needed to be taught a lesson.

  One night, Sarveshwar and his men entered Vijay’s house and dragged his father and brother out. Failing to find Vijay, an enraged Sarveshwar fired indiscriminately at his house, injuring Vijay’s bhabhi in the process. When Vijay returned home the next day from the brick kiln in the neighbouring village, he vowed to finish off not only the landlord and Sarveshwar, but their families too. It was not out of love for his family. He simply did not like to be challenged.

  Vijay knew he could not match the strength of Sarveshwar’s gang in any way. He decided to join forces with Sarveshwar’s adversary, Pankaj Singh, who also happened to be Sarveshwar’s cousin, but did not see eye-to-eye with him. Both of them were embroiled in a bitter property dispute. Their hatred for each other had only grown with time.

  ‘Pankaj Bhai, aapka aur hamaara dushman ek hai (Pankaj Bhai, we have the same enemy). We have to eliminate him,’ said Vijay when he visited Pankaj.

  Though Pankaj detested Vijay’s clan, he loathed Sarveshwar even more.

  ‘Toh kaise karna hai (So how do we do this)?’ Pankaj asked.

  ‘Aapko maaloom hoga na (You would know best). You tell me, where can we kill him? Does he follow any schedule? He must have some chink in his armour.’

  ‘Sarveshwar is a bhakta of Bhairav Baba. A staunch devotee. Every Thursday, he goes to the Bhairav temple on Chamundi Hills, without fail.’

  ‘Then he will have to be killed in the temple. Uski bali chadhani hogi (He will have to be sacrificed),’ declared Vijay.

  The chanting was at its crescendo. Hundreds of bhaktas thronged the temple in Chamundi Hills, the abode of Maa Chamundi. It was a pilgrimage as sacred as any other. Vijay, Pankaj and their gang blended in with the crowd of bhaktas. There was a sea of ochre, with almost all the pilgrims wearing different hues of this sacred colour. ‘Jai Chamundi Maa, Jai Chamundeshwari’––the hills echoed with the chants of the bhaktas and the centuries-old temple shone with the light of beautiful diyas. Suddenly, the devotees stopped chanting. Sarveshwar had arrived to pay obeisance.

  Once inside the sanctum sanctorum, Sarveshwar gestured to his bodyguards to move out. He needed to pray in solitude. The smell of the incense sticks wafted through the air. Sarveshwar closed his eyes and prostrated himself in front of Bhairav Baba.

  All of a sudden, he sensed movement close by. He looked up from where he was lying on the floor. The pandit was shaking. Pankaj was standing over him. By his side was Vijay. He shut the doors of the temple, smiling wickedly all the time.

  Sarveshwar closed his eyes. He knew his time was up. Pankaj took out his pistol and aimed it at Sarveshwar’s head.

  But before Pankaj could squeeze the trigger, Vijay dropped a huge stone that was lying next to the Shiva linga on Sarveshwar’s head. Soon, the milk flowing over the steps of the temple turned crimson red. Pankaj could not see his own cousin’s head reduced to a pulp. He vomited violently.

  This was the beginning of Vijay’s rise as a dreaded outlaw. In a few years, he would be known as the Butcher of Nawada.

  Vijay had lofty ambitions. He needed to cement his position in the world of crime.

  ‘Pankaj Bhai, let us gather some better weapons.’ Pankaj looked at Vijay and said, ‘Theek toh hai. Aren’t our countrymade weapons good enough for our work?’

  ‘Arre, kuch bada socho (Arre, think big). Having sophisticated weapons will put us in a different league,’ retorted Vijay.

  ‘Okay, but where will we get those weapons from?’

  ‘Oh, leave it to me. The weapons are available on the roads every night.’

  Pankaj could not believe it. They were about to loot rifles from policemen. Vijay, Pankaj and his men surveyed the streets. There was not a soul in sight. Only two frail home guards were patrolling in the cold, dark night. The home guards were shivering, their hands dug deep into their torn trench coats. Their rifles were slung casually on their shoulders. The gangsters quickly surrounded the two unsuspecting home guards and easily overpowered them. The poor home guards were totally outnumbered and unable to provide any resistance.

  Vijay inspected the rifles and smiled with glee.

  ‘Chalo, bhaago! Let us go!’ shouted Pankaj.

  ‘Kahe, Pankaj Bhai? What is the hurry?’

  Vijay pointed his favourite desi katta at the home guards. The poor men stared at certain death.

  Vijay shot both of them even before Pankaj could open his mouth to protest. Pankaj shuddered. Vijay bordered on crazy. He was obsessed with killing.

  Now Vijay’s gang had police rifles too. Pankaj became increasingly wary of Vijay. There was no doubt that Vijay called the shots in the gang now. He was also quite intelligent, a quality he put to good use when planning criminal activities. And he was extremely dangerous.

  When he realized that his expenses were increasing, Vijay kidnapped the son of a bullion trader in Lakhisarai. The trader paid Rs 5 lakh to Vijay. He dared not even inform the police, such was his fear of the gangster. Thankfully, the child was spared. Nobody in the gang could believe it. Maybe Vijay was not in the mood that day. But the very next day, Vijay killed the child’s uncle––after the ransom had been paid and the child released. The butcher did not want to sully his image.

  Nawada was a small, backward town famous for aloo, baaloo, or sand, and the name of a political leader that rhymed with both these words. Vijay had no interest in aloo or potatoes, but he definitely wanted to get into the busines
s of baaloo. Sand mining was very lucrative. Vijay’s business soon diversified into illegal mining. Of course, kidnapping and extortion remained the flagship business. His group functioned with the efficiency of a world-class company!

  Soon, politicians with unsavoury reputations tried to entice Vijay. His clout among his people increased day by day.

  Kumarballabh was the local neta at the time. Vijay and he belonged to the same clan.

  ‘Vijay Bhaiyya, hamaare saath mil jao (Vijay Bhaiyya, come join us). You will go very far,’ he said to Vijay when he met him.

  ‘Sure, Kumar Bhai, tell me, what can I do for you?’

  ‘Bas chunaav jitwaana hai (Make me win the elections).’

  ‘What will I gain from your victory?’

  ‘Vijay, it is always good to have political connections. Tumhare dhandhe ke liye achcha rahega (It will be beneficial for your business in the long run).’

  Vijay smiled. Kumarballabh was right.

  To his men, Vijay declared, ‘We have to ensure that our man Kumarballabh wins the assembly elections. Money won’t be a problem,’ while fiddling with his desi katta. All the gang members nodded in unison.

  Kumarballabh’s only rival, Kesho Singh, was a ‘dabangg’ leader in his own right. He belonged to the same clan as Sarveshwar and Pankaj. Vijay’s plans against Kesho were beyond Pankaj’s tolerance. No doubt, Pankaj had been working with Vijay Samrat for the last few months, but it had purely been a marriage of convenience. Vijay had already become much more powerful than him. Kumarballabh’s victory would firmly establish Vijay as the kingmaker.

  Pankaj’s men were already very upset with him.

  ‘Tu doosre logon ke saath kaise mil gaya (How come you have allied with a man from another clan)?’

  ‘Just to take revenge on your cousin, you have betrayed our people. Shame on you!’