Kumbhpur Rising

by Mayur Didolkar

  Apart from the beautiful temple, Kumbhpur has very little else to offer. The towns’ folk go to the white sand beach for entertainment. In the evening the place is full of locals taking a dip in the sea and tourists staring at the setting sun. The town has one Science, Arts and Commerce College and an engineering college. The engineering college student population consists of students from either northern states securing their admissions through large donations, or children of the local celebrities like police officers, bank managers and wealthy farmers. They have secured their admissions through birth, similar to the army officer posts in the ancient times.

  Kumbhpur has one other distinction. Like many towns in rural Konkan it is slowly going in the grips of alcoholism. The population of permit rooms and country liquor bars is disproportionate to the overall town population, yet these are the only establishments that seem to thrive. The permit rooms and the country liquor bars open at eleven in the morning to service the Rural Development Corporation staffs who like to begin their day with a tall stiff shot. The local farmers and politicians usually start dropping in at around two in the afternoon to combine lunch with drinks. They normally stay till dusk. The nights are lively with the presence of the younger generation of locals and students.

  Naturally the evenings are more violent in Kumbhpur. The third road to your left if you happen to walk from the bus stand towards the only local theatre is fondly called “Beer Street”, since it has a staggering twelve joints serving various kinds of alcoholic beverages. Children, young girls and women avoid that road during the day time and at night seeing a lone woman walking on that road is a sight rarer than a naked bus driver.

  Apart from these joints, the road just after Sambhaji Bridge has a few roadside hotels calling themselves Dhabas because they have a tandoor in the kitchen. The crowd gathers there in the evening, mainly because cheap alcohol is available there albeit under the counter. By nine in the evening at least seventy-five percent of the town’s male population is drunk.

  Politically the town has been a traditional bastion of the Farmer’s Union of Maharashtra. In every assembly elections since 1960 the town has returned a representative of the FUM. The farmer’s lobby rules the town like the old mafia rulers of Sicily. A handful of farmers control the cash rich temple trust and, they control the rice fields of the town. They have a controlling interest in most of the booze joints and since 1998 a lucrative toll collection from visiting devotees has been added to it.

  The farmers lobby decides who should become the next principal of the two local schools, it decides which pujaris should perform the Mahapuja in Navratri, and it fixes the prices of almost every agricultural commodity. In small town economics this is an extremely fertile territory and the farmers’ lobby protects it with guile and terror.

  Every assembly and municipal election is won by a candidate backed by the lobby, because opposing them is not worth the trouble for most of the population. The town has a very small white collar population (mostly bank employees and school teachers on transfer), and they keep their heads down and their noses out of trouble. If they vote, they vote for whoever the lobby is backing and offer lame congratulations to the winner, should they come across him while walking home.

  So, there we have our typical small town, ignored by most of the world and brewing with discontent within. The last time the town was in the news was an incident everyone would rather forget.

  Tired of earning a beggar’s income for toiling hard in harsh conditions, while their masters raped their wives in thatched huts, all the farm workers formed a union and stopped working. The state Home Minister made a reference to the strike while addressing the winter session. A class one delegation was due to be sent from the state secretariat to look into the matter.

  The farmers’ lobby however had different ideas. They put those ideas into action on the 8th night of the strike.

  In the dark of the night a mob of about seventy FUM members attacked the colony of the farm workers with sticks, ancient swords and lots of fuel. The whole area was surrounded and then set on fire as the workers and their families came running out.

  Each category was dealt with separately. Small children were simply stabbed and killed. Every girl about the age of twelve was stripped, raped and then torched alive. The male members were first beaten unconscious, and then buried alive in a twenty feet deep ditch dug for that special purpose. A road roller did twenty trips over the loose earth to make it firm.

  The official body count stood a little over fifty. When the state police force arrived and dug the ditch again, they were greeted with the ugly sight of human bodies crushed to pulp about ten feet deep. The whole mess resembled the world’s largest butcher’s block.

  About two dozen men were arrested and charged with murder and arson. The litigation is still up in the court, though by now the only ones still making rounds to the Mumbai high court are the enforcers of the farmer’s lobby. Most of the chiefs who devised this attack have gone scot free. And the FUM has shown the workers who is the boss.

  All that is due to change very soon, ‘times they are a-changing’ like the old song goes.

  Chapter 12

  In the summer of 1999, Neeraj Joshi was working with Money Maker’s Securities as a key account executive. He had committed his first murder a few months before, and in the entire police investigation of that unsolved murder, his name did not figure anywhere.

  Money Maker’s was a conservative stock broking firm founded by Mr. Palresha in 1934, thus becoming a founder member of BSE. Now the business was in its third generation, run by the founder’s grandsons, Satish and Sumit. Satish Palresha was in charge of marketing and new initiatives, whereas Sumit handled the dealing room. Satish was an intelligent visionary who had identified financial consulting as the next big thing, and diversified his company into insurance and mutual funds before the multinational banks did. Satish recruited Neeraj in November to head the business development portfolio.

  Numbers show that Neeraj transformed this modest family concern into a thriving professional place, with over one hundred crores of assets under management. In a relatively short two and half years stint Neeraj integrated insurance, mutual funds and equity divisions to deliver a single point contact wealth management solution for their clients. Therefore, it is surprising that Neeraj lasted only two and half years with MM securities.

  Satish Palresha was a good looking man in his early thirties back then. He and Neeraj were as different as chalk and cheese. Satish was a product of a blue blooded family that placed a premium on being humble about their riches. Neeraj was an orphan who knew a thing or two about winning ugly. Satish had a kind patient nature, whereas for all his outward calmness, no one could call Neeraj a kind man. Certainly not us, with our unique knowledge of the man’s deeds. Satish wanted to maintain the feeling of a close-knit family while growing his organization, whereas Neeraj preferred the impersonal,professional environment of MNCs.

  However, it was not the difference in their basic nature that ended Neeraj’s stint prematurely. It was a man called Adesh Bandodkar, may he rest in peace.

  Adesh Bandodkar was Neeraj’s teammate in the portfolio management team. Unlike Neeraj, who had two years of experience with HDFC bank before coming to MM securities, Adesh was recruited by Satish straight out of college. Adesh was a slightly wayward son of a high school teacher who had taught Satish and Sumit, and thus Adesh’s recruitment was more due to Satish’s respect for Bandodkar Sir than his professional qualification.

  Satish started Adesh as a clerk in his back office department where the boy proved himself to be a good learner. Soon Satish moved him from back office to sales. As the business grew, Satish slowly handed over a sizeable portfolio to Adesh. He proved himself to be equal to the task and soon became the top performer at MM securities.

  During all this time two things grew steadily. One was Adesh’s image of himself as the only just man in the world, and second was his slavish devotion to Satish. The fi
rst thing made sure that he became the most hated person in the company, the second thing ensured that there was nothing anybody could do about it.

  As Adesh began earning more, he became paranoid about his own family, thinking of them as greedy gold diggers. This paranoia drove him to alcohol and the company that comes along with it. He substituted his company for his family and Satish for his father and god rolled into one.

  Satish himself was pained by Adesh’s estrangements from his family; he often mediated between Adesh and his younger brother Sanjay. Sanjay, a devoted son, was driven to frustration and anger by his brother’s callous attitude towards his parents.

  When Neeraj joined in 1999, Adesh was staying with his friends away from his family. Right from the beginning, Neeraj and Adesh did not like each other. Adesh thought Neeraj was a show-off, all style and no substance. For once most of the employees agreed with Adesh. Most of them had a background similar to Adesh’s, they knew nothing about nothing before the came there, and thus owed their careers to Satish. Neeraj, never the one to display hero worship, was taken to be an arrogant prick.

  On his part, Neeraj thought very little of his colleagues. Most of them were unambitious little people who did not exist in the private world where Neeraj lived. As far as Adesh was concerned, Neeraj understood that man for what he was. A rebel without a cause, a man angry with himself, venting the anger on the world as a whole.

  After the first six months of Neeraj’s stint with MM securities, Satish knew he had trouble on hand. Neeraj and Adesh often fought with each other, and to Satish’s dismay more often than not Neeraj was right. It did not affect Satish’s judgment though, he ruled often in favor of Adesh, against his better judgment. Neeraj, normally a cold self possessed man, lost his temper only when he saw his rational boss taking sides. On those not infrequent ocassions Neeraj could see a wet guilt in Satish’s eyes.

  Adesh enjoyed this patronage, and used it to ensure that Neeraj never got the support he needed, and then pointed out shortcomings in Neeraj’s work. The rest of the employees, partly cowed by Adesh’s temper, and partly blinded by their loyalty to Satish, played along.

  The last straw came in late 2000, when Satish announced that Adesh was going to head the newly formed wealth management division. After implementing the concept for two years without naming it, the company had finally decided to begin a new division to cater to this segment.

  Neeraj was furious beyond belief. He was the one, who had fought resistance from his teammates, when he had mooted this concept first. He was the one, who had made literally hundreds of cold calls, pushing this new concept in to an ignorant market. Now that the time for rewards was here, Satish had listened to his heart rather than his head and promoted Adesh. To add insult to injury, Satish had communicated to Neeraj that going forward Neeraj would report to Adesh.

  When the announcement of Adesh’s promotion came through, Neeraj congratulated him and walked out of his office.

  Standing on the footpath he called Sanket Shah, an acquaintance he had formed while working with MM securities. Sanket had offered him a job three months back, and Neeraj asked him if the position was still open. It was. Neeraj came back to inform Satish that he was resigning.

  Satish heard him out and said “If you think moving to a RH shares and stocks brokers makes sense for your career, I won’t stop you.”

  Neeraj could see the relief in Satish’s eyes and smiled to himself. Satish was obviously thinking that Neeraj had made the best decision for everyone around by finding himself a new job.

  It was true, but only partially. Neeraj decided to move out of MM securities to avoid the obvious humiliation of reporting to the person he hated the most, but that was a secondary reason.

  The primary reason was that Neeraj wanted some time and space so that he could plot the downfall, and eventual murder of Adesh Bandodkar.

  Chapter 13

  “Just who exactly is this guy?” Addl. CP Deepak Sane asked the investigating officer in the Neeraj Joshi case, a young woman officer named Shilpa Joshi. Shilpa was sitting ramrod straight in her chair, holding a slim folder in her lap.

  “Sir I believe we have some insights into this man’s nature which will eventually lead to his arrest and conviction. The nature of his atrocities yesterday, suggested that he is not a crime-of-passion kind of a person. He cold-bloodedly murdered two men, and then had the nerve of sending their body parts to his boss through the boss’s daughter. Somehow, that makes me think that this is not the first time he has killed. So, I did a little background check on him” Shilpa paused.

  “There has been no criminal complaint of any kind filed against him, I checked. Not even a simple drunk and disorderly behaviour. So, I made his company dig out all sorts of personal documents he had submitted during his working days there. One item was a copy of his passport, which had his old address since the passport was nine years old. He stayed in Malad back then. I checked with the local police station there, again, no complaint featuring our man as an accused.”

  Addl. CP Sane got the drift immediately “But he was registered as a complainant there?”

  “Yes sir, on two occasions. First in December 1998, he had lodged a complaint against a Rashid Khan, aged 33, occupation rickshaw driver. Apparently the two had an argument over right of way, and this Rashid Khan pulled a knife on him. Rashid Khan was warned but the complaint was not followed up properly.”

  “What about it then?” Sane asked.

  “Sir this Rashid Khan was a history sheeter for the usual drunk and disorderly behaviour, and one stint in jail for stabbing a college student in a bar downtown. Rashid Khan died in March 1999, four months after his incident with Mr. Joshi. He apparently drove his rickshaw over the stone railings on the new Washi Flyover, crashing to his death. The case was recorded as an accidental death and his blood alcohol content was high enough to allow that possibility. Here the story gets interesting.”

  Sane looked at the wall clock. Shilpa Joshi was never going to win any awards for story telling. She was presenting all the interesting facts in a non linear way that would end up confusing a judge.

  “I took Neeraj’s motorcycle registration number from the RTO; he had a black Yamaha then.I ran it through our database. The bike was sold in 2001 when he bought the car that he currently drives. But that motorcycle was our only clue, so I took the insurance details from his RCTC book, and contacted New India Assurance and got access to their records of claims.

  Well, the records show Neeraj made only one claim on that bike, and it was exactly four days after Rashid crashed to his death. The story on the claim form was he was driving home during an unseasonable shower and his bike skidded. The claim was for repairs and replacements of the front mud guard, wheel rim and the headlights. It was passed after standard deductions.

  Now, the thing to take note of was that when Rashid’s rickshaw was found lying on the road beneath the bridge, its tarpaulin hood was completely wrecked, not unusual after a fall, but the sheet was clearly torn in a few places and the passenger seats had groove marks on the back, suggesting a sharp object tore through the hood and wedged itself against the wooden backrest. A sharp object, like the mudguard of a Yamaha motorcycle,”

  “He drove his bike into the rickshaw, and killed the driver over a traffic spat?” Sane asked a little disbelievingly.

  Shilpa nodded “Nothing that would stand up in the court, but enough circumstantial evidence, and that is not all, Sir. Mr. Joshi had lodged his second complaint for harassing phone calls against a certain Adesh Bandodkar. A year from that complaint Adesh Bandodkar went for a walk and has not returned till date.”

  ***

  Chapter 14

  In retrospect, killing Adesh Bandodkar proved to be a watershed event in Neeraj Joshi’s career as a killer. It taught him the value of patience, it taught him the importance of remaining anonymous, and most of all it taught him how to enjoy his killings.

  He had begun his ground work the moment he had joined
Royal Heritage shares and stock brokers Company. He knew that to kill Adesh, first he needed to know Adesh’s personal life better than he had known till then. To that purpose, he carefully cultivated two people; one of them was Jayesh Modi. Jayesh Modi was a manufacturer of plastic goods by profession and an investor by blood. Neeraj had bought him over to MM securities during his business development days. Over the next 2 years, Neeraj and his team helped Modi earn over 50% return on his capital. He and his brother Raghvendra’s accounts were two of the most lucrative accounts the company handled back then.

  When Neeraj left MM securities to join RH, he naturally introduced Adesh to Jayesh as his future account manager. Jayesh accepted this news stonily, but Neeraj had known him well enough to detect an underlying uneasiness that his client felt. Neeraj, after all, was the moneymaker for Jayesh, the soft-spoken young man, who had turned his once overly debt oriented portfolio into one of the most profitable ventures he had. This same young man had also kept his head and advised Jayesh to exit three months before the bottom fell out of the technology stocks in 2001. How Adesh fills those big shoes would decide a lot of things.

  For just this once in his life, Neeraj wished for Adesh to do well with Jayesh’s portfolio. If Adesh screwed up, Jayesh would take his business elsewhere, and then Neeraj would have no access to Adesh’s work schedule. It was downright funny; Adesh’s life was dependent on the net worth of his HNI investor. Had Adesh known how the die was loaded, he would not have been so zealous regarding his duties to Jayesh’s account.

  Neeraj had also ensured that Jayesh’s account occupied maximum space on Adesh’s list of priorities. He had achieved this by bragging in front of his colleagues (a rare instance for him), as to how when he walked out of the door, he was going to walk out with Jayesh Modi’s account.