Brutal

by Uday Satpathy

  Just when she had crossed a few tables, he called her name. She turned.

  “Be safe, Seema Madam!” he said, glancing at her the same way the inmates look at a fellow prisoner being taken to the gallows. As if the warnings in the mails were intended for her.

  8

  Prakash was back in his hotel room and sitting in front of his laptop. He was working in darkness, praying to God for some sleep. The bottle of VAT 69 Scotch whisky on the table glowed in the faint light from the monitor. He’d had his third drink of the night, but was upset about not getting high.

  Worsening his mood, the psychiatrist angle had reached a roadblock. The address – ‘35/2C, Shipra Enclave, Lalpur Avenue, Allahabad’ given by the old man had turned out to be a fake one. Nothing on the address matched any landmark in the city. Who is this Varun Gupta? Why does he have so many fake addresses?

  He tried searching for Dr Varun Gupta on Google. Soon, he was shaking his head in disbelief. There was no information about this man on the internet. All searches with his name threw irrelevant results. Will Mrinal be able to dig up something about this ghost? God knows!

  Dejected, he made himself another drink and gulped half of it in one shot. His brain was clouding over. Good.

  Recalling that Mrinal had sent him a few mails, he checked his Outlook mailbox. There were three mails from Mrinal with the same subject – ‘Stuff on MeB’ Mujahid-e-Bashariyat. He downloaded all the attachments into one folder made for the Nitin Tomar case. There were a lot of web pages, a few videos and an MS Word document named ‘Synopsis.docx’

  From experience, Prakash knew that ‘Synopsis’ was the most important document in the folder because it contained the summary of Mrinal’s investigation. He opened it and started reading.

  Mujahid-e-Bashariyat, meaning “Warriors for Humanity” is a very new organization. Hardly 8 months old.

  MeB published their first video on YouTube (video attached) on 12th of September last year i.e. about 6 months before the Geetanjali school massacre. They have also made a few blog entries and posts on militant Islamic websites, all between September to December last year (web pages attached).

  The posts in YouTube and other websites are made using different accounts with different names. It is difficult to get the exact details of these users.

  I found one person who can be possibly linked to MeB. His name is Mohammed Afroz. He has commented on almost all the posts of MeB and often writes like a moderator. I have tracked him to his locality (see details in point 6).

  Nitin Tomar’s assassination is the first major activity of MeB. Interestingly, unlike other terror groups, the ideological leader of MeB is not a public figure. No one knows who heads MeB.

  Mohammed Afroz lives somewhere near Jalbera Road in Ambala City. Probably works as a Foreman in a local sugar mill. I hacked into his Facebook account and a few radical Islamic forums he is part of. Appears to be pro-Taliban, as ‘pro’ as they get. He often interacts with a bunch of orthodox Islamic friends who usually discuss and criticize the lifestyle and behaviour of ‘Kafirs’.

  To summarize, MeB is a fledgling Islamic organization that has shown its teeth for the first time. Go grab this Afroz guy and you may get some more leads.

  After he was finished with the synopsis, Prakash quickly went through the other attachments. The video comprised a masked man speaking in Urdu and admonishing the kafirs from the west. Usual stuff. Dozens of such videos on YouTube. Because the language was pure Urdu, he wasn’t able to gather much from it, though he heard the term Mujahid-e-Bashariyat a few times. He found similar stuff in the saved web pages too, which contained blog entries made by people from MeB.

  The idea Prakash got from Mrinal’s research was that MeB was a pretty new organization and was still trying to make its name. Some day or another, its leader would come out in public.

  He was impressed with Mrinal’s work. He had not only been able to give him a new lead, but also a place where he could find his man. Smart work buddy. He decided to travel to Ambala at the earliest.

  He took his glass into the bathroom and drained the remaining VAT 69 in the washbasin. His usual chore would begin now. Trying to sleep.

  9

  8 Pm, Ambala City

  An alley offsetting the Jalbera road lay silent in the duskiness of the summer evening. The lane composed of 2-3 storied small buildings on its either side. With no streetlights and only a few houses with lights turned on, the place looked like a quarantined town afflicted with a pandemic.

  It was for the third time in the day that Raman was walking through the alley. His first two visits had been just for reconnaissance purposes. The real thing will happen now.

  He was a tall man with skin the darkest shade of brown, making him look like a ghost in the night. To make it tougher for anybody to memorize and recall his features in the dark, he had not shaved since the last few days. It gave him a grizzly look. On top of that, he was wearing a cap and photochromic glasses.

  He looked at his next victim’s house, which stood only a few meters away from him. It was a small flat, a 1-BHK-house maybe, with no stories, a small parking space in front and a metallic grilled gate outside. A motorcycle was parked on the veranda. Lights were on in the living room and the bathroom.

  He’s in.

  He looked around to check if there were any people in the alley. He could see only a couple of guys somewhere far down the lane. That was good. He wanted no eyewitnesses. His escape plan was also well thought out. Adjoining lanes, the connecting main road and the fastest route for the bus stand – all were etched clearly in his mind. He unlocked the safety of his Beretta and cocked the hammer. He was now ready for all possible impediments to his escape. If everything went well, which he hoped it would, it would be as easy as his Allahabad hit.

  Ensuring that the metal gate didn’t rattle and squeak, he opened it, got in and then shut it again. He moved up the veranda and knocked on the door. The ray of light from the peephole in the door was blocked by an eye trying to figure out who was standing outside.

  Open the door, kid.

  A young man in his late twenties opened the door. He appeared tired and run down, a look accentuated by the stubble on his face. His forehead creased as he gave Raman a questioning glance.

  “I thought we were done! Why are you here again?” the young man asked, trying hard to keep his voice to a whisper.

  “Let me in first, Afroz,” Raman replied with a smirk. “You know we can’t talk outside.” He could smell the revolting concoction of smoke and drink in his breath.

  Afroz let Raman in and shut the door in a hurry.

  Raman noticed Afroz was staggering. Drinking the whole night? Nice. The TV was turned to some news channel. He saw an ashtray filled with cigarette stubs and ash beside an empty whisky glass. The living room seemed to be clouded in a thin veneer of smoke. This guy is paranoid. Smoking and drinking too much. Good for me.

  “So, how are things Afroz?” Raman asked, deliberately trying to provoke him.

  “Let’s keep the pleasantries for some other day,” Afroz replied irritably. “We had decided we’d never meet after you made the final payment. So, why are you here? You know it’s dangerous.”

  “I know, I know. But there is a problem,” Raman said, increasing the volume of the TV. “I think, over the past few weeks, you have left too many open trails on the Internet. A clever guy just needs to follow one trail and you are gone.”

  “What the hell! I have taken sufficient care in hiding my footprints on the net,” he protested. “We wanted everybody to go after Mujahid-e-Bashariyat and that’s what we have achieved. The police and the media are now after this phoney organization, looking for some venom-spewing Jihadi clad in a pyjama.”

  “I know, Afroz. You’ve done well up until now. But, there are things that aren’t sometimes in our control. The threat videos you had prepared can lead investigators to where it was recorded. The pro-Jihad communities you got into can be infiltrated. The AK-47 I
had given you can be found. There are a lot of loose ends. So, you need to go.”

  “Go?” Afroz frowned. “Where?”

  “To Australia. At our cost.”

  “And what if I say no?”

  “Then you will piss off some really powerful people,” Raman said, staring into his eyes. “Besides, you don’t have an option. We don’t want someone to get to you and then connect you to us. So you will have to go.”

  “When do I move?”

  “Tomorrow. You go to Mumbai and then fly out.”

  Afroz nodded with a sad look on his face.

  “By the way, where is the AK-47 now?” Raman asked, changing the topic.

  “Taken apart and hidden in the bathroom flush.”

  “What if it’s found by someone?”

  “Nobody comes here.”

  “Just show me where you have kept it.”

  “Come with me,” Afroz said with pride, as if he was an artist showing off his creation to someone.

  Afroz walked ahead with Raman following him. He walked into his bedroom that had an attached bathroom and went inside.

  This was the moment Raman was waiting for. He took out a syringe from his trouser and removed its cap. It contained Etorphine Hydrochloride, a tranquilizer used to control wild animals. Knocks-off an elephant in a minute. On humans, the effect could be devastating. He didn’t want to kill Afroz with it. So, he had kept its potency lower on purpose.

  He gave the piston a gentle push to remove air from the syringe and opened the bathroom door. Afroz was bent over the commode, trying to open the flush cover.

  Raman plunged the syringe into his back near the spinal cord and pushed the piston till almost half of the contents of the syringe were inside his body. Afroz turned around with a start, his eyes bulging in shock. It took only one second for him to understand what was happening.

  “You bast…” he mumbled, but could not complete the sentence. He tried to shout and call for help, but somehow felt no power left in his body. His mind was going blank. Smoke and alcohol were making things worse.

  Raman stood in front of Afroz, keenly observing the reaction of the drug. He took out another syringe from his pocket. It contained a white-coloured liquid.

  “It is a heavy dose of cocaine,” he said. “Even while dying, you will enjoy the rush.”

  Afroz was lying on the ground. His face was blank, but eyes were open and directed towards Raman.

  “Accept death, my friend,” the assassin scoffed. “Poets say it’s graceful.”

  He bent down and picked up Afroz’s left hand. “You are left handed, aren’t you? You will now inject yourself with some cocaine,” he whispered.

  He affixed the syringe between Afroz’s index and middle fingers, and dragged it towards his right arm, inserting the needle into his vein. The young man offered no resistance, as if his bones had turned into loose rubber. Raman now pushed the piston gradually till no more cocaine was left in the syringe. Go to sleep. Forever.

  He now pulled out a handkerchief from his pants. It contained a packet of cocaine, a couple of crumpled bus tickets and a few needles dabbed in cocaine. He pierced Afroz’s vein once with each needle and then placed the needles in his breast pocket. Holding the cocaine packet using the handkerchief, he went into the kitchen and looked for a jar containing lentils. Dal. Taking care not to leave any fingerprints, he opened the jar and embedded the cocaine packet within the dal.

  Now he took out the bus ticket and the cocaine dabbed needles and dropped them in the kitchen dustbin. He took out a manila envelope from his jacket and placed it in the bedroom cupboard. The only thing that remained now was wiping his footprints and fingerprints, if any.

  Raman now relaxed, because he had covered all his bases. Two days ago, his accomplice had dropped a Barrett M107 rifle in a pond a few kilometers from here. The man had ensured that he was seen by a few people. That was also a part of the game. Perfect closure to this episode. Can I retire now?

  10

  Prakash lay on the operating table, unable to move. Bathed in the disconcerting glow of the surgical lights, he felt suffocated, as if a wet towel had been wrapped around his face. He tried to shout, but couldn’t. No. Please, don’t. He wanted to plead to the people in masks working on him with scalpels and forceps. Stop!

  The men didn’t stop.

  Prakash gave up resisting. He couldn’t do anything other than staring at the men’s faces. He concentrated on the face of one man, who appeared to be their leader. An old man, with scholarly eyes behind thick lenses, who kept talking to his colleagues in hushed tones. His hands moved with the precision of a sculptor. Crimson red fingers. Spreading open skin. Cutting into flesh.

  In a second, the surgeon’s facial expression changed. He knitted his brows, as if he found something creepy lying amid the naked blood vessels and organs. A momentary shadow of disbelief crossed his narrowed eyes. In seconds, it transformed into shock and then sheer terror.

  “What the hell is this?” the old man cried, his hands extricating something from Prakash’s open chest. It looked like a brick of white clay wrapped in duct tape, with a mesh of wires joining its two ends. His colleagues were aghast. They sprang away from the place like houseflies.

  “Don’t go. Don’t go,” the surgeon screamed with helplessness, his hands trembling. “At least, tell me how to handle this!”

  But, there was no one left to help him, other than a dying soul on his operating table.

  Prakash had given up on himself. He felt a numbness sweeping over his body, his consciousness drifting away. Before his eyes shut, he heard a familiar sound.

  Click!

  There was a huge explosion. A ball of fire kept spreading till it engulfed him. Then there was silence. Deathly silence.

  Prakash was jolted awake. With dazed eyes, he sat shell-shocked for a few moments. His ears were ringing. He touched himself to make sure he was still alive. His body was shaking, with goose bumps all over.

  An announcement by the flight attendant made him realize he was sitting in an airplane. ‘Please fasten your seat belts. We are soon going to land in New Delhi.’

  When are my nightmares going to end?

  He took a few deep breaths and then looked at his watch. 4 PM. Another four and half hours to Ambala. After getting down at New Delhi airport, he was going to take a cab to Ambala. He wanted to visit this city a day earlier, but there were no tickets available. He ruled out that it would be evening by the time he reached Ambala. As per the plan, the local correspondent of Globe News at Ambala was going to help him out.

  He had been very uneasy throughout his flight–jiggling his legs and staring out the window into the blue infinity. It was because of a call from Ritesh just before boarding. His boss had told him about a new development in the Nitin Tomar murder mystery. In the early hours of the day, a man named Mohammed Afroz was found dead in his house at Ambala, the same fucking place he was about to visit. Cocaine overdose was a possible cause. The police had found a lot of documents in his house that connected him to Nitin’s murder and the outfit Mujahid-e-Bashariyat. They had also found an AK-47 rifle from his house.

  Prakash was perplexed. He was immediately scared too. It was as if someone was spying on his thoughts. Day before yesterday, I come to know about this Afroz guy. And in a day he’s dead. Is it a coincidence?

  Ritesh was surprised to know that Prakash was already travelling to Ambala.

  “Do you have some inside info, which I am not aware of?”

  “It’s a bit complicated. I’ll explain it to you later.”

  Prakash was unable to accept that Afroz’s death was not a murder. Ritesh had mentioned that as per the primary reports, the man was suspected to be a junkie, who had taken an overdose of cocaine in a drunken stupor. He had been smoking and drinking without restraint since the last few days. The police had also found a stash of cocaine in his kitchen. His dustbin was also littered with used needles containing traces of cocaine and his blood.

&n
bsp; Like an invisible splinter on a shirt that keeps irritating the wearer, nagging thoughts kept troubling Prakash’s mind. Something very wrong was going on, but he wasn’t able to put his finger on ‘what exactly’. It was as if someone was trying to tie up all the loose ends in a secretive and professional matter. He would have to weed out that splinter. Need to visit the police station.

  * * *

  “I know this man,” Ashish Mehra, the local correspondent for Globe News, said. “Let me do the talking when he comes.”

  Prakash nodded. I won’t mind.

  Both were sitting across the Station House Officer’s desk in the Sector-8 police station. It was 8:30 PM and they were waiting for the SHO to return from his dinner break. Prakash looked at the name written on the plaque kept on the desk. Mohan Kumar Lohiya, Sub-Inspector.

  There was nothing to pass time with. So Prakash decided to strike a conversation with the young chap. He was meeting Ashish for the first time. The kid looked like a bright, impressive man oozing with the same eagerness he used to have many years ago.

  “You cover the whole of Haryana?” he asked Ashish.

  “I and a few colleagues of mine.”

  “How long have you been working at Globe News?”

  “Two years.”

  “That’s a pretty short period. Seems you have made quite a few friends in the police force.”

  “Many!” Ashish said, his face lighting up. “I have contacts in Ambala, Kurukshetra, Karnal, Panipat…” He started counting the districts of Haryana on his fingers.

  Prakash was amused to see the naivety in the eyes of this rookie.

  In the excitement of having found a new friend, Ashish made a funny face and slid his chair close to Prakash’s. He whispered into his ears, “Of all the police officers I know, this Lohiya guy is the biggest moron. You would not have seen a bigger publicity hound. He’s… shit!” He stopped, turned around and then bit his tongue. His face lost its colour for a second.