by UD Yasha
Rahul paused. He took a sip of water and continued. ‘Apart from terrorists, he took down local dons. According to him, people from the mafia were capable of making it personal. That’s why he spent more time focusing on them. Just before the murders, he was investigating a gangster in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. The person was smuggling sand into Mumbai and Delhi.’
I knew sand seemed like a ridiculous commodity to smuggle. But it is a multi-billion dollar industry in India. Not everyone is given licenses to dig up sand. That’s why the supply is less. The sand mafia, spread out across the country, illegally dig up sand from river basins, causing irreparable damage. Apart from the environmental cost, sand mafias employ people to do dangerous digging jobs. They also bribe and kill bureaucrats and police officers if they didn’t comply with their demands. I reckoned a sand mafia operating in the early-2000s was a big deal.
Rahul looked up from his laptop and continued. ‘As you can imagine, investigating such thugs and dons for murder is tough. Arresting them, getting them to talk or even finding a link between not just them and a hitman or murder, but even them and their illegal business is difficult. Motilal used Government resources to check their finances. He had them followed, both to expose their operations and to check if they did anything that tied them to the murders.’
‘I’m guessing he found nothing.’ I said.
‘He has not. He has issued another disclaimer for the section of local dons and mafia members. It states the difficulties associated with getting proof against them. He also said it’s a long game. He still has a few of these people under surveillance but has not found anything against them.’
‘We have gone through twenty of the hundred and six people he has listed as potential suspects,’ Radha said.
I assisted them for an hour and, together, we knocked off seven more people. We were trying to find a connection between the data Motilal had compiled on them, and the information we had from all the new evidence we had gathered that Motilal did not have yet.
But we found nothing useful. I got up and stretched. I needed a change. From how Radha and Rahul’s shoulders were drooping, I knew they needed to change it up too. They had been going through Motilal’s data for a longer time.
‘Let’s go to the garage and look at other stuff. A different setting, new topics and a fresh perspective wouldn’t hurt,’ I said.
It was almost noon. Not yet time for lunch but all three of us were miraculously hungry at the same time. So, we went downstairs and had a round of filter coffee. We spoke with Maa and played with Shadow. After a twenty-minute break, we went to the garage to start off on the things I had in mind.
‘How are we doing this?’ Radha asked me.
I said, ‘A couple of things occurred to me after speaking to Dhar. He told me that Kabir was expecting someone at the farmhouse. He had not shown up till Dhar was present.’
‘Are we taking what he told you at face value?’ Radha said.
‘For now, we are.’
‘Dhar hinted that the bloody clothes at his house were planted by the cops. I don’t know how but I’ll check if that was true,’ Radha said and paused and her eyes wandered. She appeared to be thinking. ‘I’ve an idea,’ she said. ‘I’ll work on it.’
‘It will surely be helpful to know for sure if Dhar was framed,’ I said. ‘Coming back to the person who was supposed to meet Kabir, three things could have happened. Firstly, the person killed him. Secondly, the person got cold feet and decided against meeting Kabir. Thirdly, the person was killed. Both Kabir and Niyati were killed because of what they knew about the Viper. There’s no reason why Kabir’s mystery person was not killed for the same reason.’
‘How can we find which one is true?’ Rahul said.
‘I have a method in mind. We cannot prove right now that the person killed Kabir or that they had cold feet. There is literally no way. But we can check the third option.’
‘Of the person being killed?’
‘That’s right. Kabir was killed in Pune. If this was such a big meeting for him, closer to the date and time of the meeting, Kabir would have checked if the person was still willing to meet him. Let’s say the meeting had been confirmed. In that case, the person would have had to be in or around Pune. If he was murdered, he would have had to be killed in Pune. I’ll ask Rathod to check how many people were found murdered on the same day as Kabir Ahuja. I don’t think there will be too many. To further reduce the number, we can eliminate people based on their age. Very old and young people don’t make the cut.’
I called Rathod and told him to find out all the people who had been killed on 20th November 2002 in Pune. Five minutes after I put my phone away, it started ringing. It was Rathod again.
He said, ‘One of my criminal informants just identified John Doe.’
Chapter Thirty-Six
I could feel the adrenaline course through my body. I put the call on speaker. Radha, Rahul and I stooped in over it.
‘John Doe’s name is Vivek Saxena. My CI knew him because Vivek was a fellow criminal.’
‘What was he known for?’ I said.
‘Vivek was one of the best lock-picks out there. My CI told me that there was no safe that Vivek could not crack. He just needed time and some motivation in terms of money,’ Rathod said.
‘The safe might have had the evidence,’ I said.
‘We’ll find out soon,’ Rathod said. ‘My SWAT team is on its way to Vivek’s house. Bhalerao and I are already on our way to your house. Stay ready and be armed. We’re picking you up in five minutes and then heading to Vivek’s house.’
The call ended and silence rebounded on the walls of the garage. I knew what Radha was thinking. I turned to her and said, ‘We’re going to have a lot of firepower on our side with Rathod’s SWAT team. All of us will be okay,’ I said.
I went to my room and changed into jeans and a T-Shirt. I put on my bulletproof vest. I made sure both my Glocks were ready to fire. I secured them in the ankle and chest holster. I went back to the garage and waited for Rathod to arrive. Radha and Rahul were still inside. Radha sat next to me and held my hand until I got up when I heard Rathod’s car at the gate.
‘I love you,’ I told Radha and Rahul as they hugged me together. ‘I’ll see you all soon.’
Just before I stepped in the car, Radha came running behind me. But she didn’t want to speak to me. Instead, she was knocking on Rathod’s window.
‘Can I have your login details to look up old cases?’ Radha said.
‘Just don’t do anything stupid with them otherwise I will be without a job for a year and not just six months’ he said and told her his ID and password.
Once I was in the car and we got going, Rathod said, ‘According to my CI, Vivek Saxena was really psyched about his latest assignment because it was in his words “the most challenging safe yet”.’
‘What are Vivek’s finances looking like?’ I said.
‘We’ve been going through them. He’s most likely routing money into a Swiss bank account. His Indian bank account doesn’t have much money. He has a front job as a construction consultant and his earnings don’t qualify for tax. But he lives in a fancy bungalow in Forest Trails near Bhugaon. No way can he afford that with his income.’
‘Any family or associates?’
‘None. He is an orphan,’ Rathod said. ‘My CI said Vivek liked to fly under the radar. Vivek had once asked my CI for help in breaking into a locker a year back. They had hit it off then and became friends.’
We reached Forest Trails at fifteen minutes past two. Rathod’s SWAT team had already reached and were standing a hundred yards from Vivek’s house. We parked behind the two SWAT SUVs.
Rathod took the lead. He turned to me and said, ‘You’re the civilian here so stay back.’
I gave him a thumbs up. He turned to his team and showed them the layout of Vivek’s house.
He said, ‘We don’t know what to expect. Stay put and stay alert. Remember we are facing people who ar
e happy to kill. So, if you have the chance to shoot someone, go ahead. We also don’t know if the house is being occupied right now. We are going to follow our usual protocol. Step one, we enter cautiously by checking for booby traps. Step Two, we secure the place and make sure no one is going to harm us while looking for any injured people. Step three, we start securing the evidence inside. Siya, Bhalerao and I will take lead for Step three while you secure the house and make sure no one comes inside. Let’s do this and bring them down,’ Rathod said, as the veins on his neck stood out.
I followed the SWAT team. There were six of them, including Harshvardhan Kuhad, the guy who had come with us to Stan Mills.
Vivek Saxena’s house was uphill at the end of a narrow road. There were other houses along the same road. We walked close to their compound walls. Once we were outside his house, Kuhad went through an elaborate process to check for a booby trap. He gave us a thumbs up when he cleared it. Without making a sound, we stepped inside the compound of Vivek’s house.
The front door had a big padlock on it. As per the layout of the house, it had only one entrance. There was one room on the ground floor and two more on the first floor. Kuhad once again stepped towards the door and began checking it.
One more ‘thumbs up’.
Another member of the SWAT team used a lock pick and we were inside the house within the next minute.
Rathod and Bhalerao along with four members of the SWAT team, stepped away and started searching the house. One in the team stayed outside at the main gate to alert his colleagues in case of a threat.
As I stepped into the house, the first thing that hit me was the mess inside. Someone had turned the place upside down. They were looking for something and had not found it. Kuhad waited with me in the living room. I looked around. From where I was standing, I could see the kitchen and a part of the room as its door was open. The living room had the usual furniture and TV set. The TV unit, however, had been opened up. All its drawers had been pulled and things from inside them had been tossed on the floor. A hookah pot had broken on the floor next to the TV. The kitchen trolleys had also been pulled out.
I heard cries of ‘Clear’ from different members of the SWAT team. Five minutes later. Rathod came downstairs.
‘The house is empty but it has been searched,’ he told me. ‘We found some interesting stuff in Vivek’s study though.’
We went upstairs as the SWAT team divided themselves between guarding the ground floor and the main door. I followed Rathod through a small corridor that had rooms on either side and a bathroom at the end.
‘This way,’ Rathod said, entering the room on the right.
We entered a massive study room. It had a regal looking desk. But again, everything in the room had been tossed over. Bhalerao was going through the large spread of assorted items on the floor.
‘Even the other room was searched,’ Rathod said, walking to the desk. ‘Ignore the mess. Look at this.’
He picked up a paper from the floor and handed it to me. The paper had a diagram of the internal structure of a lock. I knew that the most basic lock just had one cylinder. In the diagram I was looking at, I could see multiple cylinders, dials, screws and wires running inside. Next to it was a hand drawn illustration of how the key would go inside once the electric lock was neutralized.
‘This is just one of the at least hundred angles of the lock,’ Rathod said, handing me one more paper. ‘It has the—’
‘Name of the lock manufacturer,’ I said, reading the small inscription on the base of the lock lodged in a safe. Sure Locked. ‘Vivek told your CI that he was excited as he was working on picking the most challenging safe he had picked. I’m sure this was it. This was the lock. He was clearly obsessed with picking it. He was studying it like his life depended on, just the way artists work towards completing their work.’
‘Some call that kind of obsession insanity,’ Rathod said.
‘It’s usually the work of the insane ones that’s lauded the most,’ I said and had an idea. ‘If Sure Locked made the most challenging lock Vivek had ever picked, I’m sure it was expensive. Very few places would be able to afford it. I don’t think there would be more than three or four.’
‘We can track it down,’ Rathod said.
‘Call up Sure Locked and get a list of their customers from Pune,’ I said
We went through the remaining rooms but found nothing else, so we left Vivek Saxena’s house. Rathod and ACP Shukla had decided not to share the details of Vivek’s house with anyone else, including CID’s replacement Medical Examiner, a guy named Murali Murthy.
There was a nervous excitement in the car as we drove back home to Baner. We knew that a safe meant something valuable was being stored. We all had one question. Was it the evidence, because of which so much blood was spilled, that was kept in that safe?
As we got closer to my house, Bhalerao said, ‘Sure Locked is sending me a list of its customers in Pune in some time. I’ve given them your email address too so you’ll get it directly.’
I said, ‘Are we going to check the places out?’
Rathod slowed the car down as we approached my house and said, ‘We’ll decide once we get the names.’
The moment I opened the main gate, Radha came running towards me, calling out my name. Even if I had not seen her jump so ecstatically, I would have known she was excited from her voice.
‘What’s the matter?’ I said.
Radha said, ‘I have found evidence that the cops who arrested Mukund Dhar were corrupt.’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Radha was almost jumping as we went to the garage.
‘I remembered you had told me once that corrupt cops are not corrupt just once. They are corrupt over and over again. I thought about it and it made sense, my sister,’ Radha said and chuckled. ‘It’s an addictive behaviour and I’m guessing the cops gain confidence from not being caught, leading them to catch bigger fish. I thought that if the cops investigating Kabir Ahuja’s murder had framed Dhar by planting evidence at his house, then there’s a good chance that they would have done it before as well.’ Radha swivelled in her chair and said, ‘I wanted Rathod’s login credentials to look up the other cases that those same cops had handled.’
‘Did you find a pattern?’ I said.
‘Hell yes,’ Radha said. ‘Look at this.’ She turned the laptop around to show me what she had found. ‘I think that the three cops who investigated the Ahuja murders were a team of some kind. This includes the two cops who died before, and Rakesh Patil, who was killed along with his wife. The trio investigated almost all their cases together. They worked for the first time together in 1997. They continued working a lot together till 2003. In that six-year period, they were together on three hundred and sixty-seven cases. This includes everything from petty crimes to serious ones like murders. I haven’t looked at the petty crimes yet, but I found an odd trend in the murders that they investigated. Between 1997 and 2003, they were a part of thirty-two murder investigations. Three of them were in 1997. They were solved over a period of three years. In 1998, they were the lead police officers in seven cases. Out of them, four went on for many years. The remaining three were solved within eighteen months. The trend gets more obvious from here on. From 1999 to 2002, until the Ahuja murders, they investigated seven murders together. I won’t bore you with numbers. But progressively, every year, the average time for the murder investigation went down. In 2002, the trio was together on seven murder investigations. Out of them, just two lasted more than two months. At the same time, I looked at the department average closure rate. It was very rare for cases to get solved within two months. There was a lot of bureaucratic stuff and the nature of the investigation was slow moving. Even dad’s average closure time was six months. I found this very odd. That’s not it. They hardly took on any cases after they solved Kabir Ahuja’s murder in less than a month. Something happened then.
I looked at all the cases they had finished in less than four
months. On almost every occasion, one piece of evidence had changed everything and that came out of nowhere.’
‘Like the bloody clothes in Mukund Dhar’s house.’
‘Exactly. There were times when the defense lawyers suddenly found evidence. There were at least six occasions between 1999 and 2002, when stuff was found missing from the crime scene. It included valuable stuff as well as stuff like kids’ toys or laptops and stuff like that. Evidence also seemed to go missing from the police vault.’
‘How did the rest of the Pune Police perform in all these areas?’ I said.
‘The trio was the outlier. They solved cases the fastest. They had six times the number of reported robberies from crime scenes than the rest of the police force. Same for evidence being stolen from the police vaults. I’m telling you they were up to something fishy.’
‘Were the crimes in which stuff went missing from the crime scene related to thefts? Was the killer a thief?’
‘No. The killer had a completely different motive altogether. The trio listed it themselves and it fell in line with the rest of the evidence. If you’re thinking that the killer stole from the crime scene, that’s not what happened. At least based on the evidence that I am looking at. I am ninety-nine percent convinced that these three cops were corrupt. They planted and produced evidence, they bribed defense lawyers, they stole evidence from the crime scene and the police vaults and lockers.’
‘Based on what you told me, I believe that too,’ I said. ‘That’s really useful, Radha. Great work.’
