Private India

by James Patterson

  “Can you discern if there is anything printed or written on the paper?” asked Santosh, the urgency in his voice palpable to all.

  “It seems like a picture … an image of an animal’s tail,” replied Mubeen, gently lifting the paper at the corner with his forceps so that he could look at the side facing the floor.

  “Precisely!” exclaimed Santosh triumphantly. “That image isn’t just any animal’s tail. It’s the tail of a donkey. As a kid, did you ever play pin the tail on the donkey?”

  Chapter 75

  DID YOU EVER play pin the tail on the donkey? It’s rather common at children’s birthday parties. A picture of a donkey with its tail missing is taped to a wall at a height that can easily be reached by the kids. Each child is blindfolded turn by turn and handed a paper tail with a pushpin poked through it. The blindfolded child is then spun around until disoriented and left free to make their way to the wall and pin the tail on the donkey. Interesting game, isn’t it? I never played it as a child but decided to play it as an adult this morning.

  Getting into the judge’s house was child’s play. They leave a single guard at the gate to provide security for a colonial mansion! Usually the guard is fast asleep by the early-morning hours. Placing a chloroform-soaked kerchief over his nose required no effort at all on my part. He was out for the count within a few seconds.

  The judge’s downfall was her precise routine. It was common knowledge that she was an early riser and woke each morning at precisely 6 a.m. to complete a one-hour schedule of yoga and meditation. She spent the next hour reading legal briefs until 8 a.m., when her butler would bring her the newspapers along with her tea. By 9:30 a.m. she would be showered and ready to step into the official car that would take her to the High Court in the old Fort district of Mumbai. Anyone observing the judge’s schedule would know that she was at her most vulnerable at 5 a.m. when the house was entirely devoid of staff.

  The seventh avatar of Durga is Kaalratri. She has a dark complexion and frizzy hair, and in one of her hands holds a bunch of iron thorns. She is depicted as seated on a donkey, hence my pin-the-tail joke! In any case, Her Ladyship was devoid of any intellect and had simply risen through the ranks because of her influential network of friends. If you ask me, she was nothing more than a donkey herself.

  Chapter 76

  “WASN’T JUSTICE ANJANA Lal married?” asked Santosh.

  “Yes, but her husband and daughter were in New Delhi attending a wedding in the extended family,” replied Rupesh.

  “So it’s possible that the perp has been keeping track of the family and chose a day when the judge would be alone at home,” reasoned Santosh. “Our strangler also knew when Bhavna Choksi’s boyfriend was out of India.”

  “The killer stalks the targets beforehand?” asked Nisha. “Or was it simply someone who knew the judge?”

  “The butler—what do we know about him?” queried Santosh.

  “He’s a permanent fixture here,” replied Nisha. “He is the chief caretaker of the bungalow and has been attached to the property for over twenty-five years. He personally takes care of every Chief Justice who occupies this residence. Apparently he has served seventeen during this period. He has a staff of ten—including a cook and several gardeners—serving under him.”

  “Any visitors either yesterday or today that we know about?”

  “I spoke with the butler,” replied Nisha. “The judge was feeling slightly under the weather yesterday and her GP had dropped in to see her in the evening. I have obtained his name as well as the address of his clinic.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “The judge was very particular about her yoga sessions in the mornings. Usually her teacher came in at six a.m. three days of the week. We have no idea whether her instructor came in today or not,” said Nisha.

  “What about her cases?” asked Santosh, turning to Rupesh. “Do we know which were currently being decided by the judge?”

  “I have asked for a full list from her clerk,” Rupesh replied. “She was a tough judge and showed little leniency in her pronouncements. It’s possible that she may have created a few enemies along the way.”

  “I would suggest that we should look at not only the pending cases but also recent judgments delivered by her,” said Santosh. “Someone who felt wronged could have done this.”

  “Sure,” replied Rupesh. “I’ll put someone from the High Court Registrar’s office on to compiling the information.” He took leave of the Private India team and got into his Jeep. Instead of going to HQ, he headed toward Arthur Road Jail, also known as Mumbai Central Prison.

  Mumbai’s largest and oldest prison, it was built in 1926 to occupy around two acres of land in the congested area between Mahalaxmi and Chinchpokli railway stations. The prison was originally designed to accommodate eight hundred prisoners, but densely packed with inmates the average population at any given time exceeded two thousand. Cells designed to house fifty prisoners were crammed with two hundred each. Inmates were forced to sleep in awkward positions on lice-infested blankets and the result was a high rate of tuberculosis among the prison population. Arthur Road was India’s most feared jail because of the notorious cruelty of its overseers. While petty criminals were routinely mistreated, incarcerated members of crime syndicates were able to bribe guards and officers and even remotely manage their underworld activities from within. Arthur Road was nothing short of hell on earth.

  Rupesh entered the cell that held Hari Padhi in solitary confinement. He was lying semi-comatose on a moth-infested blanket. Rupesh kneeled down near him, yanked him up by his hair, and whispered into his ear, “You got lucky, thuggee boy … a murder happened while you were enjoying police hospitality.”

  Exhausted and terrified, Hari nodded mutely, staring at Rupesh with tired—almost lifeless—eyes.

  “I’m letting you go, but you should know that I can have you back here in no time. And, with your background, no one will believe you—including that pretty little thing you are fucking on the side. Do you understand?” asked Rupesh.

  Hari nodded meekly.

  “So you are now a free man. But here are the terms on which I’m letting you go …” explained Rupesh patiently.

  Chapter 77

  NISHA REACHED THE office in Worli a few minutes before closing time. What she would do for an Ajay-type figure now. She looked once again at the board that read Office of the Charity Commissioner, and crossed her fingers that she would be able to find what she was looking for. As was to be expected, most of the staff had left before closing hour. It was a well-known fact that Indian government servants reached their offices late and made up for it by leaving early.

  A solitary senior clerk was still at his desk and looked up from the file on his desk as she approached. “I was hoping that you could assist me,” said Nisha tentatively, slipping a couple of thousands into his hand.

  The man looked at the cash and pocketed it quickly. “What do you want?” he asked.

  “Do all charitable trusts have to be registered here in this office?”

  “Under section eighteen, sub-clause one of the Bombay Public Trusts Act of 1950, it is the duty of the trustee of a public trust to make an application for the registration of the trust at the Office of the Charity Commissioner,” replied the clerk mechanically. “So the answer is yes, registration is mandatory.”

  “And is it possible to access the records of a given trust?”

  “All trusts are required to submit their audited statement of accounts with this office. Information about income, expenditure, asset block, and trustees can be gathered from the annual audited statements submitted to the authority,” replied the clerk, almost rattling off the rule book. “What type of trust are you looking into?”

  “I don’t understand,” replied Nisha. “You mean that there are various types?”

  “There are Hindu religious trusts, Muslim trusts, those registered via trust deed, Parsi trusts, and Christian trusts. If you tell me the name of the
trust in question, I should be able to assist you.”

  “It was established in 1891 and called the Sir Jimmy Mehta Trust,” said Nisha, pulling up the photograph of the orphanage signboard on her smartphone and handing it over to the clerk.

  He scrutinized the photo for a moment. “Ah, that’s a Parsi trust. It would have been registered under the previous act—the Indian Trusts Act of 1882. Accessing information on that one is a little more complicated.”

  Nisha pulled out some more cash that she handed over to him. “I was hoping that you could make it simple for me,” she said. The clerk smiled. It would be a happy Diwali season for him.

  “Wait here,” he said. “I’ll need to consult the index first. From that I should be able to pull the file number. What sort of information are you looking for?”

  “I need to know when the trust shut down and why. I also need to know who the trustees were,” said Nisha. Then she sat down on one of the uncomfortable visitors’ chairs and waited.

  Chapter 78

  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL entered his bedroom on tiptoe to avoid disturbing his wife. His aim was to avoid having to answer any awkward questions. A quick shower was in order.

  He was out of luck. “Is that you, baby?” asked his wife, sitting up in bed and switching on the bedside lamp.

  “Yes,” he replied. “Sorry, I got delayed in the office. That oil-exploration block case comes up tomorrow in the Supreme Court. The entire team had to work late.”

  “What’s her name, you bastard?” asked his wife furiously. “Elina Xavier, Ragini Sharma, Devika Gulati, or something else?”

  “That’s unfair, dear,” he answered. “I have had an extra long workday and I don’t need this badgering.”

  “Oh, poor thing! You must be so tired … having fucked every woman inside your office and outside of it!”

  “I’m going for a shower,” said the Attorney General.

  He was heading to the bathroom when a small vase whizzed by him and smashed into the door. “You are an animal! Strange thing is that whenever I want it, you can’t seem to bloody get it up!”

  “Is everything my fault?” he asked. “We did try for a child several times through the IVF route. What more do you want of me?”

  “Love,” said his wife, dropping her head back into the pillow and breaking down.

  Nalin stopped in his tracks for a minute, wondering about his next move. Then he went over to the bathroom door, opened it, and went inside for a shower.

  Chapter 79

  “ANY LUCK ON finding the missing employee at Xilon Security Services?” asked Santosh as he continued to read the note prepared for him by Nisha. It concerned the thuggee cult and the subsequent discrimination that they had faced in India, even a hundred years after their downfall.

  “I just saw a Reuters piece indicating that an unidentified body has been discovered in Shakti Mills,” Nisha said.

  “Shakti Mills? Isn’t Xilon’s office close by?” asked Santosh.

  “Absolutely. Xilon has refurbished an old industrial shed that lies along the road that is now called Shakti Mills Lane.”

  “Text Rupesh,” instructed Santosh. “There is a high probability that the body is that of the missing employee.”

  “How can you be so sure? There wasn’t even a yellow scarf at the murder scene or Reuters would have headlined it,” Nisha objected.

  Santosh shrugged his shoulders. He often found it tiresome to explain how he had figured out certain things that eventually panned out to be true. “This particular killing is not for public consumption, thus no scarf.”

  He went back to reading the note in front of him.

  The Criminal Tribes Act refers to various pieces of legislation enforced during British rule in India, the first of which was enacted in 1871 for North India. The Act’s provisions were extended to Bengal in 1876, and to Madras by 1911. The Act went through several modifications during the next decade and, finally, a comprehensive blanket legislation was passed in 1924.

  Under the sweeping provisions of the new Act, the government was required to register all ethnic or social communities perceived as being inclined to the systematic commission of theft and murder. Given that these communities were described as habitually criminal, the government also imposed restrictions on their movements and compelled adult male members of such groups to report weekly to the local police station irrespective of whether they had actually committed any offense or not. In effect, criminal behavior was viewed as hereditary rather than habitual. Biological reasons were assigned to unacceptable social behavior. Crime became ethnic.

  At the time of Indian Independence in 1947, there were thirteen million people in one hundred and twenty-seven such earmarked communities. Consequently, anyone born in these social categories was presumed to be a criminal irrespective of their precedents. This gave the police sweeping powers to arrest, control, and monitor their movements. Once a tribe was officially notified, its members had no recourse to repeal such notices under the judicial system. From then on, their movements were monitored through a system of compulsory registration and passes, which specified where the holders could travel and reside, and district magistrates were required to maintain records of all such people.

  The Act was repealed in 1949 but it did not change the social ostracism of members of these tribes. In fact, from 1961 onwards, state governments of India began regularly releasing lists of such “criminally inclined” tribes. To date, there are three hundred and thirteen Nomadic Tribes and one hundred and ninety-eight Denotified Tribes of India, yet the legacy of the Criminal Tribes Act continues to haunt the majority of the sixty million people belonging to these tribes, especially as their notification over a century ago has meant not just alienation and stereotyping by the police and the media, but also economic hardship.

  “Are you telling me that Hari belongs to one such tribe?” asked Santosh, looking up from the note at Nisha, who had been busy texting Rupesh.

  “Precisely,” she replied. “His surname is Padhi, right? But his birth certificate doesn’t show that. His name is given there as Hari Paradhi. And Paradhi is the name of one of the criminal tribes listed by the British in 1871.”

  “Are you certain?” asked Santosh. “Absolutely sure?”

  “Paradhis, Kanjars, Nats, Sansis, Kabutras, Banjaras, and countless others feature on the list. Hari changed his surname later in life so that he would be able to escape discrimination,” Nisha explained. “The truth is that he could not have murdered Mrs. Justice Anjana Lal. He was in custody when the murder happened.”

  “But he could have been part of a team that is jointly executing these murders, couldn’t he?” asked Santosh. “The Thugs were known to work in groups, right?”

  “Hari’s DNA was not present in either of the two samples at the crime scenes,” said Nisha, placing a small shopping bag on Santosh’s desk. “Have a look inside.”

  Santosh picked up the bag and peered in. It contained several scarves, all of them identical to the ones that had been used in the murders. They were also indistinguishable from the extra scarves that had been found in Hari’s desk by Mubeen. “Where did you get these?” asked Santosh curiously.

  “Outside a famous Durga temple in Mumbai,” replied Nisha. “Hari goes there every week to pray. A scarf or stole is a very normal offering to the deity. It is not unusual for Hari to have extra scarves lying around.”

  “Why didn’t he simply tell us that? Why hold back and increase suspicion where none was required?” wondered Santosh, getting up from the desk and pacing the room in his usual hyperactive manner.

  “Because he was ashamed of belonging to one of the so-called criminal tribes,” replied Nisha. “He is having an affair with a young woman—the one whose picture we saw in his photo frame. It’s possible that he didn’t want her to know his background.”

  “Fool!” muttered Santosh. “In this day and age, does anyone care that your ancestors may have belonged to a criminal tribe?”

 
; “Simply repealing a discriminatory law has not changed the fact that members of these communities are still treated unfairly. The ones who manage to become educated and find employment usually try to dissociate themselves from anything that could link them to their own communities.”

  Santosh turned very quiet. He limped over to the couch in the corner of his office, lay down, and shut his eyes.

  “What are you thinking?” asked Nisha, slightly worried.

  “Figuring out how to apologize to Hari and convince him to come back to Private India,” replied her boss softly.

  Chapter 80

  I AM SIPPING from my cup of freshly brewed coffee as I scan the morning newspaper. The body of an unidentified man was found inside the abandoned Shakti Mills premises in Lower Parel, reads the article.

  The unidentified male victim, reportedly in his late twenties or early thirties, was found inside a disused tank of the erstwhile spinning and dyeing shed. This particular shed could be accessed directly from the main approach, Dr. E. Moses Road. Officers from the N. M. Joshi Marg police station are conducting the investigation.

  Alas, Mr. Patel is not one of the trophies that I can publicly take credit for. For every act that happens onstage, some events must happen behind the scenes. This was a backstage event.

  In fact, Mr. Patel was one of my first victims. It’s just that the incompetent cops did not find his body until several days later, hence the news item today.

  Patel was very punctual, though. He had promised to be at Shakti Mills by seven o’clock in the evening and he was there a few minutes before that. I was waiting for him inside the shed, leaning against an old concrete tank that once must have contained dyes and pigments of all hues for fabric to be dipped in. He approached me hesitantly.