I
The road never had any major
traffic movement after nine in the evening and it was no different that day.
Apart from the expected public transport, there was hardly any movement of
vehicles in and around the Marine Pier Bus stop, a busy neighborhood of
Ballard Pier during the day, but almost like a ghost city after evening. An old
Fiat car stood its ground near the bus stop. There were three people seated
inside the car, two in the front and one on the back seat. All three stared
towards the entrance of the building that was located in front of the Bus stop.
Locals knew the building as Marine Tower and it housed offices of companies
which majorly acted as shipping agents. The old ancient grandfather clock that
hung at the front of the building showed the time as nine fifteen. The street
lights gave a serene look to the road on which the Fiat car stood. The three
waited in silence, all looking towards the entrance. A moment later, a middle
aged man dressed in a suit over a white shirt and black trousers walked out of
the entrance. The driver signaled to the other two. The person who was seated
at the back opened one of the doors and slowly got out. The other one who was
seated in the front also got out. Both were dressed in a white round neck shirt
and a blue denim. The two looked at the middle aged man as he stood there looking
for some transport. Looking around and finding an empty road, the two men
slowly crossed the road and started to walk near to the middle aged man. One of
them removed a country made pistol that was tucked in his pant at the back. He
checked the pistol and as they walked by the middle aged man, one of them
looked into his eyes while the other one raised his arm with the pistol. The
middle aged man was shocked as soon as he saw the pistol.
“Shoot,” shouted the other
one.
The middle aged man stood
there trembling. Suddenly two gun shots were heard by the driver of the car. He
started his car and drove it near to the entrance. The other two got inside and
the driver pushed the accelerator and speeded away through the road ahead. The
light tower near the entrance was an audience to a dead body in a pool of
blood.
As the car drove through the
lanes of South Mumbai, the one seated at the back messaged a number.
“One down, three to go!”
II
The revolving fan on the
ceiling didn’t miss the view of the country made pistol that was kept on the
old table at the center of the room. The sound from the television filled the
room with energy and life. It was not always like that. Generally, the room
would be dark and closed as its occupants would be out for most part of the
day. That evening was different. They had executed their first target. Though
they were regular in such executions, the last one was not that easy. It had
taken more than two months for them to execute their plan.
Everything had begun some two
months ago when they had agreed to execute the contract. The first target had
been informed to them with very minimal information about him. Their first task
in executing the first target was something they had never tried before.
Collecting information about the target was something they had always avoided.
Until then, they had executed contracts where in the target was local and very
easily accessible but their latest one was someone not very social in his
whereabouts. So their first task was the most difficult part.
They had searched him on
social media. After about validating more than five hundred names with the same
name, they had finally zeroed in on the one they were searching. “Ashlesh
Bhatia” was his name. They were informed that he was a secret informant of a
regulatory authority and supplied information to them regarding non complaint
companies. They had never been fussy about the purpose of the execution but
never the less, they asked to show that they validated contracts and only if
found non risky, they would accept the same. They found Ashlesh Bhatia as a
non-risky target and the conclusion of the same was formed only after getting
the entire background of the person.
It had taken more than a
month for them to get their conclusion. They had started by following him on
various social media platforms. Through the various social media handles they
had got a good hold about his activities and routine. To their surprise and
also to their benefit, they found that there were no living relatives of
Ashlesh. That made a lot of things easy for them. When they had taken up the
contract, they were supplied with the home address of Ashlesh. Everything
started from there.
For five consecutive days,
all three had kept a good eye in and around his home. One would keep an eye
from the tea stall near the entrance of the building, other one would keep an
eye from the restaurant where he frequented and the third one had become a
sales representative and would enter the building in which he lived in
disguise. In those five days, Ashlesh had the same routine. Every morning he
would come down to the tea stall and have tea and then proceed to the
restaurant for having breakfast. After breakfast, he would walk back to his
home and then by mid-morning he would be out of his building. Some days he
would go to some companies and then proceed to some regulatory offices while on
some days he would stand outside offices and befriend the watchman and the
administration staff who would get him copies of some files and documents. This
would be his routine.
For the last few days before
he was shot, he was frequenting the Marine Tower building. For continuously
four days, the three had observed that Ashlesh would get into the tower at
about six in the evening and come out only by night nine. They had concluded
that perhaps that point would be best place to execute him as there would be no
evidence in and around the locality.
So, it took a good quantum
of planning and some tailing before which they had zeroed in on the place of
action.
Back in the room, they
watched the television. There was no news about any murder around the Marine
Pier locality. They thought perhaps he was not that important that a news
channel would cover the event. By the time dinner was finished, all three came
together near the center table and looked at each other. There was no time left for them to relax. One
of them removed a photo from the bag that was kept near the table. The photo
was placed on the table. All three looked at it. That was their second target,
Vijay Kant Singh.
III
The sound of a click
disturbed his thoughts and brought him back into reality. Detective Victor
Fernandes was in deep thought when the photographer from the local newspaper
disturbed him with his clicks. He had done a thorough review of the crime. It
was not every day that Victor was called in, but when he was, he was convinced
that the investigation was to be kept secret. It didn’t take him to be a genius
to guess the fact that perhaps no one was interested in the murder of an
unknown. Ashlesh, surely had been an unknown to the media and perhaps to the
police but he was someone very important to the regulatory authorities as they
had been informed about non compliances of big corporates only through him. It
was the very reason that he had been there. He was representing the regulatory
authorities’ side in the investigation with a parallel and a secret
investigation.
It seemed like a routine
shoot out case to the eye but the choice of the location of the action couldn’t
escape his thoughts. On that side of the town, when there were hardly any human
lives around what would anyone be doing at that time, though Victor. He could
guess that Ashlesh was perhaps on his investigative spree but what were his
murderers doing at that point of time. Of course, waiting for him and that
meant that they already knew that he would be there. Only two possibilities
could be seen by him. One was that the killers were provided by the information
of his whereabouts or the killers were following him. Out of the two, he
considered that perhaps the killers were tailing him and that was how they
would have zeroed in on the point of action.
There were three close
circuit cameras in the area. One at the traffic junction ahead, one near the
turn of the road and the last one at the start of the Marine Pier locality. The
cameras would have caught them if they had traveled through those lanes. He
ensured that he would get the footage from the central surveillance office of
the city. The bullet shot on Ashlesh’s head was blunt, hard and deep. It was a
close shot, he was told by one of the forensics. So they must have walked near
to him and shot at him, he guessed. His thoughts again wondered on the
mannerism of the planning for the murder. If they had followed him then surely
they would have started from some point or a known point which couldn’t have
been other than his home. His stint as an investigator had often thrown up a
simple fact that more often than not, in majority of the cases of tailing, the
start point was always the home of the subject who was tailed.
Victor never wrote anything
and nor he typed, he processed everything in his brain and stored everything in
his brain. He marked three things to follow up, the locality of the residence of the victim, the close circuit
cameras in the Marine Pier locality and the ballistic report. He was very
confident that these three sources would take him close towards solving the
case. By the time the corpse was taken for post mortem, it was eight in the
morning. He thought of taking a small nap and then proceeding to the central
surveillance office for the close circuit camera footages. Unlike a trade mark
of a detective, Victor Fernandes wore a simple body fitting shirt and a grey trouser and carried a backpack. To the eyes, he would be normal
officegoer but only few people at important places knew that he was Detective
Victor Fernandes.
IV
Curiosity was one of the
more prominent features of Victor’s personality since his childhood. When he
had been seven years old, he was curious about everything he observed. Unlike
the other children of his age, he questioned everything and everyone. His
relatives would often say that he was the perfect symbol for a management study
called as “Always, First ask why.” His major interest in investigation came
about at the age of eleven when he had accidentally solved a footwear robbery
case in his residential housing colony. From that day onwards, whenever there
would be anything that anyone wanted to know they would go to Victor and he
would without any thought oblige to their demand. By the time he turned eighteen he had solved
more than fifty cases of robbery and this had made his name quite famous in the
locality. It was this fame which actually got him his first major assignment
from a corporate organization. They wanted him to tail an employee whom they
suspected of leaking information to a rival company. He had solved the case in
a fortnight. The company recommended his name to a known regulatory department.
The department liked what they saw of Victor and hired him on freelance basis.
By the time he was twenty-five, he had solved more than ten cases for the
regulatory authority out of which four were missing person cases and two were
of murder. The latest case of Ashlesh which Victor was working on was indeed
the more serious ones of his life until then. At the age of twenty six, Victor
Fernandes loved what he was doing, he had always cherished to do this. The
remuneration offered was extremely lucrative and was much better than his
friends who had been working in multinational corporates. He was equipped with
perks and benefits. By then, he had
learned to live a life like an ordinary citizen and carry out some
extraordinary work.
He made a cup of coffee for
himself and sat down on the leather sofa and switched on the television. He
messaged about his previous day to his family who currently resided in the city
of Panjim at Goa. As he sipped his coffee, he surfed all the news channels.
There was no news about Ashlesh’s shoot out. Once he finished his coffee and
had some pasta, he fell on the same sofa and took a nap. Small naps were his
medicines for a sharp mind since his childhood and the habit continued.
Within the next one hour
after the nap, he was back on the road in his crisp white shirt and black
trouser and his backpack. His first visit was at the central surveillance
office of the city that collected all the close circuit camera footages of the
city and reviewed for any suspicious observation. He had already called the
office before his arrival and requested to keep the required footage ready. By
the time he reached the office, the footage was ready and he observed it on the
big screen of the conference room of the office. The camera had indeed captured
the old Fiat car which drove through the lanes at the locality. The people
inside the car were not clearly visible in any of the cameras. The only thing which
it captured correctly that Victor could see clearly once they zoomed in more
was the Number plate on the vehicle. Victor noted it down and mailed it
immediately to the local Traffic control office and requested for the
information on the same. By the time he was out of the office, his next stop
was the forensics office where the ballistic report was kept. On reviewing the
Ballistic report, it came to light that a country made pistol was used to carry
out the killing. He took a copy of the report on his mobile and exited. It was
at that time when he received the reply to his mail that he had sent to the
traffic control office. The car belonged to some Ravi Kapoor. The mail had
provided the contact details of Ravi Kapoor. He found it unusual that someone
actually used an Old Fiat car in this age of automatic vehicles. He had to
decide between contacting Ravi Kapoor and visiting the residential locality of
Ashlesh. He chose the latter one for the day.
By the time he reached the
colony where Ashlesh lived, it was sometime around five in the evening. It was
a fifteen floor building in the west of Andheri. It wasn’t one of those
colonies which could be clubbed as a gated community and so it wouldn’t have
been difficult for the killers to get into the colony in the pretext of
disguise of some other work. While he was roaming around the building, he had
observed that there were two close circuit cameras on the road that crossed the
building. He called up the central office surveillance and indicated the
location and requested to look into the images for the last one month. He
realized that it would take some time for footages to come out. He took a glass
of tea from the teal stall opposite to the entrance of the building. While
casually talking to the tea vendor he showed a mobile image of Ashlesh and
inquired about him to which the tea vendor informed him that Ashlesh had been a
regular at his stall. The tea vendor informed that after having tea he would go
to the nearby restaurant for the morning breakfast. Victor gave him an extra
tip and walked to the restaurant where he inquired about Ashlesh. He requested
to have a look at the close circuit camera’s footages of the restaurant to
which the owner did not agree at the onset but later on obliged when Victor
informed about Ashlesh’s death.
On reviewing the footages
sitting in small room on the second floor of the restaurant, Victor observed
that there was nothing unusual in them. It was normal and routine. He requested
a copy of footages for which he paid some money. By the time he was out of the
restaurant, he received a call from the central surveillance office. They
informed him that the footages were ready. He informed them that he would drop
in by night nine at their office.
By nine, as promised, he was
at the office. He reviewed the footages. There was nothing unusual in the
footages. He played both the footages together, one that he got from the
restaurant and the one that belonged to the road outside Ashlesh’s building.
After about two hours of scrutinizing each details of the footage, he had a
smile on his face. In the both the footages, on each of the five days, one man
could be seen in the footages of the road outside the building and another man
could be seen in the footages of the restaurant. It intrigued Victor that at
the road side footage, one man was seen every day for a period of five days and
on the same five days another man was seen in the footage of the restaurant. He
looked closely and ensured that in both the footages the suspects were a
different one. He thought that it could even be coincidence that they were
there on each of the five days. He made an arrangement by which the photograph
of those two individuals were enlarged on the big screen and then the same were
printed. Victor wanted the images to be distributed to the local informers. The
photos would be distributed by hard form and also in soft form. It was a chance
he was taking but his instinct hinted something against those two individuals.
His only point against those two was the fact that how come both of them would
have been there each and every day of that five-day period and that too in the
respective footages. It hinted towards a collaborative effort towards tailing
someone.
In the meantime, he called
upon Ashlesh’s secret file which was maintained in the database of the
informers by Regulatory authorities. The database had bifurcated informers
based upon category they had been working for. As per the database, Ashlesh had
been working for Economic offence group. He had been responsible for collecting
information on economic offenses by companies and wealthy individuals. By the
time the soft copy of the file was ready it was already mid night. Victor
packed up the files in his personal laptop and left for home. It was that part
of time when the city would come into its own. Victor loved Mumbai nights and
especially walking home through the night.
V
On the other side of the
town, a young man who must have been twenty-three years of age, stood outside
an eating joint near Ghatkopar station which was a suburb located in central
Mumbai. The young man was standing outside the eating joint for the past thirty
minutes waiting for someone from the eating joint to come out. It wasn’t until
the next forty minutes when the man finally did come out. The young man
recognized the man coming out. He clicked his image on the mobile phone and
messaged it to number that existed in the dialed call list. The man who had
come out of the joint had a bike which he started and drove down the station
lane. The young man held upon an auto rickshaw and ordered him to follow the
bike. After about thirty minutes, the bike reached an old three storey
building. The auto rickshaw halted some meters away from the gate of the
building. The young man got down and noted the address. By that time the bike
had already crossed inside. He sat back in the rickshaw and asked to take him
back to Ghatkopar station.
Back in his room, Victor went through the data files about Ashlesh that were provided to him. He went through the entire career graph of Ashlesh. Ashlesh Bhatia had been a routine office going man who had an excellent skill of getting along with people. He had a very rare quality of persuading people on the things he wanted them to do and think. It was this quality of his that had struck a chord with his then boss who had recommended him to one of his friends who worked with the Economic offence department. Over the period of eight-year career as an informer, Ashlesh had uncovered quite a bit of dust over number of offences that were committed by various corporates and individuals. Somewhere in his mind, Victor had an intuition that the murder of Ashlesh must have a connection with the cases that he was currently handling. While reviewing the current on-going cases under Ashlesh’s name, Victor was particularly interested in one company known as Celebrity Media handlers Pvt Ltd. That was the last case on which Ashlesh had been working on. The company was a celebrity social media handling company which did an online management of the social profiles of number of celebrities from various fields. In intrigued Victor to no ends as to what could such a company do to get in the list of Ashlesh’s cases? He clicked on the latest information that were uploaded by Ashlesh on the case. He observed that the upload was done some two days before his death. The substance of the case was simple. The company was acting as an agent for the celebrities in siphoning off unaccounted money to a foreign country. Ashlesh had explained the entire process through which the money was siphoned off in the name of the loan given to a company that were registered and opened in foreign countries. Victor was not a finance person, but Ashlesh had made the concept very clear. The celebrities paid huge sums of money to the company as fees which the company would account as loan and income. Income was accounted only for thirty percent and the rest as loan. That seventy percent was then given as a loan to foreign company by this Indian company. The foreign company never paid back the loan and thus it stayed in the banks of the foreign country. For Victor, it was interesting case. He looked up into the case file and noted down the names of the people handling the case. There were four people. One was Ashlesh. One among the other three was a person named as Vijay Kant Singh who was designated as an enquiry officer. Somewhere up in his mind something clicked and he looked at the names. There were four people and one was gone. He thought for a scenario what if one down and three to go. There was no reason why Vijay Kant Singh wouldn’t be the next target. He picked up his mobile phone and dialed a number.
VI
The three men had gathered
around the center table in the room. There were papers all around. The photo
image of Vijay Kant Singh was placed on the table. One of the young man from
them had gathered all the information on him and his daily routine. Unlike the last task, this was a bit
difficult as Vijay Kant was not as available as Ashlesh was. Vijay Kant
generally traveled in his bike and would for most of the day sit inside his
office. He would step out for evening tea and mid night drink. The only time
Vijay Kant was vulnerable was at the point when he stopped outside his housing
colony and pushed his bike inside due to steep rise which he avoided. He walked
over the slope by taking his bike along. That was the only time when they could
attack him. It was risky and they didn’t like risky operations. They didn’t
want to come to the notice of people. The problem was that time as running out
for them and there were two more targets to be executed. After a lot of
thought, it was decided that they would go ahead with the hit at the decided
point of action. The colony gate of his building when he would be pushing his
bike.
Victor was hoping for some clues from Ravi Kapoor, the person in whose name the old Fiat car had been registered, but to his dismay Ravi Kapoor had informed him that he had sold the Fiat car to an old garage. Victor had taken down the number of the garage and when contacted he inquired for some old car he wanted to sell. He was very careful in revealing his true identity. The old garage was located in the western part of the town known as Sion. It was located in the center of the central Mumbai. By the time Victor visited the garage it was mid-afternoon. He had carried the number of the old Fiat which was used during the Ashlesh murder. By the time he had started to interact with the owner of the garage it was evident that he was not involved with anything in the case. While walking along with the owner, he tried to view the number plates of majority of the cars. It was not before a complete one hour of questioning that he finally had come across the car that he had been searching for. He noted down the number and it matched. His first catch was on. The fiat car was picked up from this garage and they again dumped it here, he thought. He informed the owner that he would call him once he discussed his proposal with his family and walked out. While he walked out of the garage he was very sure that the killers would surely again come here to take the Fiat to execute their next task.
VII
Associating was a skill that Victor had built in him since his childhood. A much underrated skill in management, associating had indeed made this case look much simpler and solvable. The very ability to join all the dots and connecting it to an act or event had turned out an important skill for Victor in many of his earlier cases. But this one was a serious one and he needed to get to the killers before they got to the next victim. His intuition was claiming that the next target would be Vijay Kant Singh. He informed about his plan to the local police officer named, Mr Gaikwad. Mr Gaikwad was shown all the possible evidences by Victor. There was no direct evidence but only circumstantial evidence. It could also have been a case of the wrong person at the wrong place, he thought. But Victor left no stone unturned to explain him. He drew his entire plan on a big white page and showed it to Gaikwad. It was a challenging decision to be made by him. If they would go wrong then heads would turn. But he liked the plan. They would not take action until there was any evidence of any intent to hurt. Finally after lot of thought, Mr. Gaikwad agreed.
On the other side of the
town, the three men looked at each other and got ready for the kill. They had
decided that it was that night when they had to execute the plan. All three got
out of the room and walked to the nearby stand and took a rickshaw. By around
eight thirty they had reached the garage. After negotiating with the owner,
they borrowed the old Fiat car for the night and drove out of the garage,
unaware that someone was waiting for them on the other side of the road. Victor
was bang on when he had guessed that they would surely come back for the Fiat.
On his bike, he started to follow the old Fiat car by keeping a safe distance
in between him and the car. Over the next one hour, passing through the central
suburb of Kurla and Vidyavihar, they had finally reached Ghatkopar station. One
of the men got down while the car proceeded ahead. The bike followed the car. A
Police team was already placed outside the eating joint where Vijay Kant was
having dinner. They were in plain clothes and the young man who had got down
from the Fiat car didn’t have any idea about the same. Victor followed the car
until it reached a secluded place outside a three storey building. The car
halted under a tree that was straight outside the entrance. The two people
seated inside had clear view of the entrance. They were unaware that a bike was
parked some meters away and someone was hiding in darkness.
At Ghatkopar station, Vijay
Kant walked out of the joint and sat on his bike. He looked around. The young man
called up his partner who was waiting in the car.
“He is starting from here.
Will reach there in thirty minutes,” informed the young man.
“We are ready here.”
The call was cut as Vijay
Kant drove away and the young man got into the rickshaw and followed Vijay
Kant. What the young man didn’t know was the fact that he was been followed by
Police in plain clothes who were disguised as common citizens on bike. Three of
them were following the rickshaw that was following Vijay Kant. It took not
more than thirty minutes to reach the spot of action. Vijay Kant reached the
gate of his building. He got down from his bike and at the same the two men got
down from the car. One of them carried a country made pistol in his hand. The
young man by now had reached the spot on the rickshaw. Victor followed the two
men who were proceeding towards Vijay Kant. The young man who had got down from
the rickshaw saw a third figure following his two partners. As he was about to
shout, he was held by two person who held his mouth by their hands and took him
into the corner.
Four more policemen who were
waiting for the suspects emerged from the other side of gate. Vijay Kant looked
up.
The two men who had come to
kill stood grounded thinking. One them raised his arm and tried to shoot but at
that same moment Victor jumped on him and got hold of him. One of the other
policemen got hold of the other man who was about to pick up the pistol. Vijay
Kant was only a spectator to all this.
“What the hell is going on?” yelled Vijay Kant in utter shock.
It was around one in the
night when all the three suspects were arrested and taken into custody. All
three were arrested red handed with the help of a brilliant plan that was
planned by Victor. He very well knew that only circumstantial evidence wouldn’t
be enough to put them behind bars, they had to be caught red handed while they
were about to commit the crime. It was the perfect old school plan. All the
three had confessed to their crime and stated that they were provided with a
contract to kill the four people.
Victor could guess those
people who had given the contract to these people, but his job had been done,
and the police would take it from there. By the time the formalities were
completed, it was early morning five.
It was surely some night,
thought Victor. It was one of the most daring cases Victor had taken up. As he
drove home, he thought of taking some days off and go for a vacation.
By the time he reached home,
and was about to sleep. He received a message from his immediate senior.
“Detective Victor Fernandes.
Well done. Time to go to the next level!”
Victor could very well guess
what it meant. After all, he was a master in associating by then.
This story is a complete work of fiction.
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