Shreyasi Sinha was also arrested in the conspiracy to kill Nirav Choksi. Most of the evidence against her is weak even though Kabir Khan is confident that Aditya’s confession along with Divya’s testimony will be enough to send her to jail for a reasonable time.
Divya, who had contemplated suicide when she realized Aditya was cheating on her, was shattered when she realized that her father was a power hungry, blood sucking, manipulative demon. She has now severed all ties with the people who made her life a living hell and moved to the US where she is pursuing a career in academics.
DGP Krishnan was offered an extension for a year—a result of solving what came to be known as the ‘Padmanabha Swamy Temple murders’. However, he declined the extension, choosing instead to spend time with his wife and lavish on her all the love and attention that he had not been able to during his life as a public servant.
Kabir Khan went back to Delhi to take up his new assignment as additional director, technology, CBI. Pallavi joined him three months later. She was transferred to the Taj Mahal Hotel in Delhi. Khan had to pull some strings to orchestrate the move. The two of them meet each other daily, and are now considering marriage.
Dharmaraja Varma continues to be as powerful as he was earlier. His power and influence can be gauged by the fact that not only did he manage to infiltrate the audit team and plant a mole in Subhash, he also was able to send a team of loyal police officers to Kannan’s house to question his wife, without Krishnan’s knowledge. Incidentally Kannan’s wife later confirmed that her husband had arranged for the alternate phone for Subhash after being requested to do so by Subhash during his visits to the temple to deliver lunch to Rajan. Though no doubts remain that it was done at the insistence of Dharmaraja Varma.
Krishnan and Khan still differ on the king and his conduct. Krishnan’s opinion was driven by the fact that the construction site next to the Kuzhivilakom temple, where the underground escape route from the palace emerged, was suitably barricaded and sealed to prevent unwanted elements from accessing it. He felt that if the king had done that and handed over the land to Radhakrishnan Nair, it was an indication of his honest intentions. Khan felt that the fact that the king was not letting go of the power and riches that rightfully belonged to the people only went to show that he had an ulterior motive. Moreover the presence of the gold-plating machine in the temple and the recovery of temple riches from the sand truck in Madurai pointed to the king’s involvement in something less than honest. The jury is still out on this one.
The amicus curiae submitted his report to the Supreme Court two months later. The final report omitted a lot of irregularities that the team had identified. Vikram Rai came under a lot of fire and was even accused of selling out to the king. The fact is that he was frustrated and had reached a mental state wherein he just wanted to complete the task handed out to him and exit. Somewhere deep inside he had also come to believe that it was god’s will that had caused the deaths of Kannan and Subhash.
The state has made no efforts to take over the temple. Dharmaraja Varma, despite being kept out of the temple’s affairs, still runs it by proxy, as all the other members of the Supreme Court-nominated team were bureaucrats from the local community. The security at the temple is now foolproof. CCTV cameras cover every corner. Blast-proof bolsters have been installed at every entrance. The fear of an attack from external forces has been addressed. However, what goes on inside the temple no one knows. Vault B has still not been opened. Everyone is waiting for someone to order the opening of the vaults again. The case is sub judice in the Supreme Court. However, it seems even the Supreme Court is now scared to take a decision, that too, in the name of God.
THE BEGINNING
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PENGUIN BOOKS
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This collection published 2017
Copyright © Ravi Subramanian 2017
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Jacket images © Meena Rajasekaran
ISBN: 978-0-143-42573-1
This digital edition published in 2017.
e-ISBN: 978-9-386-49593-8
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In the Name of God Page 32
