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Word Count : 4500

Target : 130 Votes

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71 | Kanwar, Duggal & Sassoon

| 24th May, 2023 |

| Wednesday |

| 0800 Hours |

Almost eight days had passed since Bakhtawar had handed over the laptop to her after getting it repaired, yet she had not had a moment of peace to switch it on and check its contents.

The pitch black screen of the silver Lenovo IdeaPad laptop back from 2013, placed on her thighs, stared back at her.

She averted her gaze to survey her surroundings outside her Scorpio, which was parked inside the temporary parking shade of the SIT headquarters.

Then turning her attention back to the laptop, she switched it on. The device came into life in a trice.

Exactly thirty minutes later, she wiped the hot tears rolling down her pale cheeks, shut the lid of the laptop and kept it on the passenger side seat.

Then unlocking the driver side door she stepped out of the automobile and locked it back when something suddenly struck her mind like a bolt of thunder.

"In the dark we dive, in the dark we dwell,"

Her obsidian eyes behind her specs which were gaping at noting in particular with an air of shock, automatically darted back to the laptop resting on the passenger side seat of her Scorpio.

"How dense is this fog, Only time shall tell."

The riddle kept on playing in her mind like a broken tape recorder. She gulped and turned around, reposing her head on her car for a brief moment.

A minute later, she straightened her shoulders, took a deep breathe in and strode straight towards the entrance of the headquarters, clutching her satchel tightly to her body.

A familiar male figure emerged from the distant corridor, staring at her with a staunch gaze. Hinduja smiled faintly, greeting him. "Good morning, sir."

The DCP clasped his arms across his chest. "Morning." He greeted back in a curt tone. "I need to talk to you."

Her brows furrowed involuntarily, sensing the stiffness in his tone of speech, but she nodded. "Sure."

Beckoning her towards the outdoor cafeteria, he ordered two cups of coffee and settled down in one of the chairs. She, meanwhile, carried their coffees to the table and got herself seated in front of him. Passing the cup to him, she sipped from hers.

"Look." Raghav began . "I might be unaware of a number of things but I am definitely not a fool."

His eyes appeared rigid. "I am in this service, not for fun and my rank is definitely not a result of me fooling around with some of those good-for-nothing politicians. I hope you get that?"

She somehow had an idea of where this was heading to. Nevertheless, she nodded again.

The DCP clasped his fingers on the table next to the hot cup of coffee he had ordered for himself, while his impassive eyes were locked with hers, "Who is Mahadevan Dogra to you?"

Despite the slight ripples of shock she felt herself going through, she remained calm and quiet.

Raghav sighed. "Rao, that evening, I came in front of you because I thought he was a threat for you because of how he was looking at you, but when I pondered on that entire series of events later on, I realized that his gaze wasn't exactly the normal threatening kind."

He paused. "And from how much I know about Mahadevan Dogra, he is not the kind of man who will look at any woman with that kind of intensity, without a proper reason."

His calculative eyes scrutinized her impassive face for a flicker of emotion. "That evening, I was also there and if he found us suspicious, technically he should have charged towards me, as a man. But surprisingly he didn't. Instead, he tried to approach you, asking his chief of security to close the door. You were also behaving very weirdly around him, seemingly avoiding his gaze. I felt him eyeing my hand that was around your waist too and that's definitely not a normal reaction unless, he is someone whom you already know. And the next morning itself, I receive my transfer orders to Port Blair, but do you know what's more astonishing?"

He chuckled mirthlessly, "I receive a stay order on my transfer orders within a few hours of receiving my transfer orders. Wonderful, right?" He concluded. "So, tell me, who is he to you? Who is Mahadevan Dogra to you?"

Hinduja exhaled, sipping the remnants of caffeine in the cup she was holding. "My husband." She replied, resting the cup on the table and folding her arms across her chest, the metallic buttons on the cuffs of her blazer coruscating under the bright rays of sun entering through one of the windows of the empty police cafeteria. "He is my legally wedded husband. Any issues?"

Raghav's eyes widened for a split second and he stared out of the window, looking at nothing in particular. His chuckles clashed against the bleak silence engulfing them both. "Wow!"

"Yeah, wow." She shrugged nonchalantly. "Want to say congratulations?"

"Yeah." The DCP smiled. "Congratulations." He paused. "for making a fool out of us all."

The profiler felt her jaw ticking. "Listen here and listen clear, sir." Her tone turned crisp. "I don't have any damned advantage in keeping you all unaware of who I am married to. I have my reasons and that's why I have kept it all under the wraps for so long. Until, this case is solved, I can't let my identity out. I just can't. Why and How? You will come to know all of that bullshit eventually. So, please, keep your mouth zipped for the time being and don't ask me anymore questions, will you? We will talk about this some other day, I am requesting you." She finished.

He massaged his forehead. "Fine!" He raised in his submission. "Just tell me this much, was it him behind my transfer orders?"

"Yes." She glanced at the dial of her watch.

"Woah," An air of amusement took over him. "Never knew that Mahadevan Dogra is one of those insecure kind of male species."

"For now just be grateful that he planned your supposed safe landing in Port Blair instead of the holy heavens, yeah?" She tipped her chin, mockingly.

And just like that the air between them got clarified.

He doubled over in laughter. "In the end, he did find himself a woman who is exactly like him, eh?"

"Why do I feel that you are obsessed with my husband, sir?" She countered him with her left eyebrow rising up.

"In your dreams, Rao." He smirked, getting up from the chair. She followed him out of the cafeteria. "I am by all means a straight man," He winked, completing his sentence. "—for your kind information my dear work wife."

She shook her head, hitting her head.

"By the way," She mumbled, matching his steps to the conference room.

"What?" He probed.

"That riddle, and the term 'dark' in it—" She adjusted her specs on the bridge of her nose with the tip of her index finger. "I guess I know what it means."

He stopped dead in his tracks, turning around. "What exactly?"

She gestured at the door of the conference table, "I'll explain. Let's go inside first."

He nodded, pushing the door open. The senior-junior duo entered inside, one after the other.

"Jai Hind, sir!"

The DCP nodded.

"Jai Hind, madam!"

Hinduja smiled back in response, and averted her gaze towards her mentor.

Bowing her head, she greeted him and directly dived into the main matter of concern. "The riddle from that night that that man recited—" She trailed.

Aravind tipped his chin, "Yes, what about it?"

Rukmini and the others looked on in intrigue too.

"I have a deduction regarding it." She responded, slowly strolling towards the projector screen and the white board set up next to it.

"Oh!" Ramandeep clapped his hands for once, staring at the white board attentively. "Please go ahead."

"Please do madam ji!" Daleep Bedi rolled the wheels of his wheelchair inching closer while Maninder Yadav, Rukmini, Patwardhan and the others nodded.

"Sure." She picked up the marker. "Let me present my deductions about the riddle first. Then we can discuss about what happened on the evening of 21st May in the club and zero down on a list of prime suspects. Can we do that?"

Collective words of agreement echoed in the conference hall.

"Let's begin then." Saying so, she started writing the riddle on the white board in cursive penmanship.

"In the dark we dive, in the dark we dwell,

How dense is this fog, Only time shall tell."

Then, just under the riddle, she wrote another word using dark, block letters between inverted commas and underlined it.

'DARK'

"The main clue of this riddle, according my understanding, lies in this word—dark." She circled the term 'dark'.

"Will you please elaborate, Rao?" The DCP clasped his fingers on the table.

"Sir, for that, I have question." She responded. "Do you remember what the parents of all those abducted girls told us about their gradually changing demeanor prior to 7-8 months of their disappearance?"

"Yes." Rukmini nodded and recollected. "All the girls were actually reserved and introverted but seven to eight months prior to their abduction, they had all slowly emotionally withdrawn themselves from their parents, were irritated almost all the time, and had developed anger issues."

"Correct." Hinduja smiled, jotting down '7-8 months' on the board. "7 to 8 months before May means-"

"Oct, November or according to some of the parents, even September, the preceding year." Patwardhan completed her sentence.

"Yes." She then wrote the three months on the board. "So, from September, October or November to the exact day of each girl's abduction in the month of May, this is how long the syndicate takes to implement its entire plan every year."

She concluded and then darted her gaze back to Raghav. "Sir, remember Shreya Bhatia's younger brother Ayush Bhatia? Shreya Bhatia, daughter of Aravind Bhatia and Moulina Bhatia? The second abductee of 2022, who was abducted on May 2, 2022?"

"Yes," Raghav replied thoughtfully, "Her brother, as in that kid who stopped both of us that day to ask if his sister will ever return or not?"

"Exactly." She jotted down Ayush's full name on the board. "Do you remember what he told us about some unknown friend of Shreya?"

"Ah, yes, I do." Raghav scratched his chin.

"Initially, I just let his words slip from my mind but now that I think about it, that kid actually gave us a clue that day." She continued. "A friend—an unknown friend; perhaps he was talking about someone from the syndicate who was in contact with his sister. Shreya had threatened Ayush that she would stop playing with him because she had made a new friend then. And this actually happened according to Ayush's statement. Shreya did stop playing with her brother months prior to her abduction."

"So?" Jishu probed.

"Officer, the syndicate has a pattern of working." She answered. "They first find girls that match their criteria, that is, the list of correlations that we found. The second step comes into action by them zeroing down on those girls and meeting them through some means. Then the third step enters the story—establishing contact with those girls, making them feel comfortable and creating a supposedly 'open' and 'safe' space for those adolescents girls to communicate their woes. Finally the fourth step, brainwashing them against their family and friends and then eventual making up a promise they will have better life with the Syndicate instead of their families. And then the end—the fifth step of abduction-which happens with the consent of those girls."

"And all these things, happen in the time interval of these seven to eight months." She used the marker to circle '7-8 months' that she had written down previously.

Then she turned around, her back ramrod straight, "And my deduction about that riddle, revolves around the third and fourth step of their plan—establishing contact with the girls, making them comfortable and brainwashing them."

She glanced at the inspector. "Praapti, you have a teenaged son, right?"

Praapti nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"Can you please tell me how he spends most of his time apart from the period in which he is at school?" She asked softly, with a genuine smile.

Praapti's lips parted in uncertainty. "Uh, he watches TV, talks with me or his father, studies, plays games on computer and plays outdoor games too."

"Quite an ideal kid." Hinduja's smile widened. "Anything else that he does, Praapti?"

Praapti licked his lips and chuckled. "He has social media accounts too."

"Excellent!" Hinduja clapped. "Thanks for being an honest mother!" She added.

The rest of the team laughed and Praapti smiled embarrassedly.

"So, officers, that brings me to the next point." Hinduja roamed her gaze around, meeting each one of their gaze. "Social media or social networking sites! Internet! or whatever it is!"

"So, the syndicate is establishing constant communication with the abductees through social media or chat groups?" Rukmini probed.

"Not exactly," Hinduja clicked her tongue. "Because this is where the word 'dark' from that riddle makes an entry."

"In the dark we dive, in the dark we dwell,

How dense is this fog, Only time shall tell."

She recited again.

"Think about it, what is that one space which is used by most illegal organizations to establish contact with their preys? For example, terrorist organizations." She suggested. "How do you think these people communicate with their next set of recruits?"

Raghav scratched his chin and blinked twice in deep thought. "Dark web?" He faintly muttered to himself.

"Bravo!" She wrote two more words on the white board in capital letters encompassing them between inverted commas, next to the word 'dark'.

'DARK WEB'

"The 'dark web' is the means through which the syndicate communicates with the girls. Could be a chat group there or something like that, but I am sure it is the dark web through which these people communicate. Basically if we try to decode the riddle, the dark is where they 'dive' or operate and it's in the dark where they 'dwell' or live. The majority of their plan is implemented through dark web. The brainwashing of the girls is carried out by the members of the syndicate through regular meetings or conversations on the dark web."

"The second line—How dense is this fog, Only time shall tell—according to my understanding means that, as time progresses we will eventually come to know the extent and reach of the syndicate or how vast it is, and also the people involved in it." She interpreted. "I could be wrong about this but for the time being, this is what I feel."

A series of gasps resounded inside the conference room.

"What you are claiming is a serious matter of concern Hinduja, because for teenaged girls to have access to dark web is not normal at all." Aravind took off his specs. "Are you absolutely sure about it?'

"I am." The poker-faced criminal profiler locked her arms behind her back.

Aravind sighed. "Alright."

"But then ma'am, you said that the first step of their plan is finding out girls matching their criteria and zeroing down on them?" Rukmini pointed out. "So, do they use dark web to carry out this step too? Or do they use it just for the third and fourth step of their plan?"

Hinduja's lips curled up again. "How did we meet Rukmini?"

Rukmini grinned. "We met each other in person when you joined the team after getting appointed as the interim criminal profiler of our team."

"So, we didn't know each other before that instance, right?"

Rukmini nodded. "Right."

"And how do we communicate with each other now when we are not in office?"

"Through calls and messages." Rukmini replied.

"So, how me met each other sometime ago is different from how we communicate with each other now, right?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"That's exactly the case here too." Hinduja explained. "How the members of the syndicate find out the girls matching their criteria and meet them in person initially is very different from how they keep in contact with those girls."

"Oh." Rukmini smiled. "I get it."

"So, for the girls to have access to dark web, the syndicate must have guided them from the beginning, right?" Ramandeep questioned.

"Yes."

"To access dark web, a person can't just use the regular browsers that are available." The DCP remarked. "Because, there are specific browsers to access that too. So, if we have to probe more in this direction, we will have to apply for warrants and acquire a means of entry into the internet service provider logs of all the abductees till now and also examine their phones, laptops and other digital devices, which may show connections to these specific browsers used by them to access the dark web; however, this is not always guaranteed and depends on the level of encryption and privacy measures taken by them while accessing the dark web, which I guess will be a tough job to crack, provided that the syndicate is very cautious in all its actions and plans."

"Correct." Hinduja nodded.

"This comes under the cybercrime investigation department and for them to look into this, I believe it will take a lot of time." Aravind added.

Hinduja sighed. "I concur."

"Anyway, I will talk with the cyber crime department today, after our meeting ends." Aravind assured.

"Sure, sir." Hinduja bowed and then darted her gaze back to the rest of the team. "Now, I would like to come to my next inference."

"Go ahead" Raghav tipped his chin.

Hinduja glanced at Gaurav. "Officer, can you reiterate for me the psychological profile of the leader of the syndicate?"

"Sure, ma'am." He got up. "Psychopath, has an intense hate yet love kind of feeling for an unknown woman whose physical appearance and internal nature is the criteria for all the abductees till now, stands at a spot very high in financial hierarchy of society, has a lot of power and authority too, possibly follows the faith of Christianity, to be specific the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church of Kerala which adheres to the East Syriac Rite." He dictated everything calmly. "Right?"

"Correct." She gestured him to sit down. "Please settle down."

He did as said, while she jotted down all the points dictated by him on the second half of the white board.

Turning around, she began again, "Now, what if I say that this entire psychological profile on the board—" She pointed her index at the board. "is not of one single person. Rather, it's a jumbled and mixed up criminal profile of two different people?"

"What the fuck!" Patwardhan cussed while the others gaped at the white board in blatant astonishment.

"Officer, language!" Aravind admonished. "This is the headquarter of the Special Investigation Unit and you are a part of it. Kindly maintain the decorum of the institution you are sitting inside. Moreover there are lady officers around too. Be mindful of that."

Patwardhan bowed his head in embarrassment. "I apologize, sir."

The DGP nodded back, and glanced at the criminal profiler. "Continue."

Hinduja nodded and drew two separate tabular columns on the right side of the white board, one below the other.

A

1. Rich

2. Powerful

B

1. Psychopath

2. Intense Love/Hate feelings for a women (trigger)

3. Christian (Syro-Malabar Catholic Church of Kerala)

Directing her forefinger in the direction of the two tabular columns, she elucidated, "Officers, what we are looking at is a coin of two sides." She recollected her husband's words. "And A and B are two different sides of the same coin. The syndicate is possibly divided into two different factions, headed by two different people together."

To avoid suspicions about how she came to know all the information she just let out, she added with an air of confidence. "This is just my deduction. I could be wrong too. But I would still say the same thing—all the points of the psychological profile of the prime suspect of the Maia's month abduction case that we mapped out initially—don't actually add up into one particular person at all. They are of two different people."

"Your guess about that tattoo J.B." Raghav voiced out, "J standing for Jayachandran and B standing for Bohra actually seems logical. Jayachandran Bohra might actually be person A, judging from the fact that he was present around Vaikunth Patil during that call with Dubey and also in the private suite of 'The Crown' on the evening of 21st May. I don't think this is a mere coincidence."

"I agree."

"I agree."

Patwardhan and Ramandeep exchanged glances, expressing their agreement.

"Then that puts Vikram Seth under our radar too." Rukmini suggested. "He has been Bohra's business partner since time immemorial and he is also Bohra's distant relative."

"So, according to this logic, Jaidev Kanwar becomes an even bigger suspect, because at this point of time, other than being the chief legal advisor of the Bohra group, he is Jayachandran's closest aide, almost like his shadow. They are like milk and water." Gaurav gave voice to his opinion.

"Kanwar is bad news." Aravind rubbed his hands together. "I have seen all kinds of people but never someone like him."

"I agree." Raghav met his eyes.

"Why?" Hinduja scrunched her brows.

"I honestly don't know." Aravind replied. "He is a retired army personnel. Used to work as a lawyer in the Judge Advocate General Corp of the Indian Army. After getting retired, he started his own practice. Then suddenly, he joined the Bohra group's branch in the US, travelling back and forth between India and US for a number of years, eventually climbing up the hierarchical ladder with in the Bohra group. Currently, if I say from a rough estimation, he is perhaps closer to Jayachandran more than Vikram Seth ever was. He is a major share holder too, but the worst of all is his nature. Very strange."

"Extremely eccentric or if I were to be precise, he is a little messed up from mind." Raghav picked up from Aravind left. "The Bohra Group has not even lost a single legal dispute since Kanwar took over its legal wing, except one—" He paused meeting Hinduja's gaze. "The custody battle of Anirudh Dogra, Mahadevan Dogra's son with his late wife Shivalika Bohra Dogra, Jayachandran's daughter."

She averted her gaze, looking elsewhere.

"That means, until Jaidev Kanwar stands in front of Jayachandran Bohra as his shield, it is impossible to arrest him or present him in the court, right?" Jishu asked.

"Precisely." Aravind sighed.

"But there are two people who can actually counter Kanwar." ASI Maninder Yadav pointed.

"Yadav is right." Daleep Bedi agreed.

"Who?" Hinduja capped the marker she was holding.

"Bedi yaara, what's the name of the younger heir of the Sassoons?" Yadav tipped his chin, meeting his best friend's eyes.

Daleep Bedi joked with a chuckle, "Oh, Tom and Jerry? Arey nahi yaara! Cherry ya Berry jaisaa kuch hai na? He is young but damn good."

(Oh no buddy! Something like Cherry or Berry, right?)

"Jeremiah Sassoon." Aravind corrected, training his gaze onto his palms.

"The Sassoons are back in India?" Raghav questioned, clearly surprised.

"Yes, sir ji." Daleep Bedi nodded. "One of my informers told me. The Sassoons are back in India."

"And the second person who can counter Jaidev Kanwar?" Hinduja probed, thoroughly curious.

"Prosecutor Anusuiya Duggal" Daleep Bedi replied.

A flare of recognition passed through Hinduja's eyes hearing the name.

"Anusuiya Duggal—that woman—is perhaps as eccentric as Kanwar. No one in their right mind would like to mess up with her."

"I have a doubt, sir." Praapti spoke up.

"Shoot." The DCP smiled.

"That evening in the club, along with Jayachandran Bohra, Vikram Seth, and Jaidev Kanwar, Mahadevan Dogra and Anirban Sarkar were present too, right?" She breathed in. "Plus, more than anyone else, Mahadevan Dogra is closer to Jayachandran in terms of connection because of his relationship with Bohra as his dead daughter's widower despite their plausible strained equations due to Anirudh Dogra's custody battle. On top of this, Anirban Sarkar's grandfather Padmanabh Sarkar has a close affiliation with the Dogras and Bohras as well, in fact the entire Sarkar clan does. Then, shouldn't Mahadevan Dogra and Anirban Sarkar be included in our list of prime suspects too?"

"You are right." Aravind agreed. "But, the J.B. initials tattoo that was there on that man's chest and—" He glanced at Raghav, "also on Naren Ranawat's chest, the man whom Hinduja encountered in the club, clearly makes Bohra our prime suspect more than Mahadevan or Anirban."

"At least for the time being." He adjoined.

"Yes." Raghav voiced out.

Hinduja kept quiet, not uttering a word.

"By the way," Ramandeep butted in, "There is something I need to inform you all."

"Say it."

"Nandu, that informer of mine, called me this morning. Naren Ranawat is missing since the evening of 21st May. I am yet to get this confirmed though."

"What?" Patwardhan scratched his head, feeling absolutely perplexed. "What in the world is actually going on?!"

"This is possibly the most complex case I have ever worked on in my whole career, sir ji." Maninder Yadav said.

Praapti glanced at Hinduja. "We could have actually moved ahead with an arrest warrant issued against him and questioned him, but he is also gone now."

Raghav shook his head. "Wrong. Arresting him would have been pointless and possibly even dangerous, because if what Rao deduced today is correct—about the syndicate having two leaders—then there is no point in arresting just Naren Ranawat at all. At this point in time, we can't summon Jayachandran Bohra for questioning or even arrest him at all too. We need more circumstantial evidence against him for that. Plus, if we do take any action against him, Ranawat, Seth or Kanwar now, the first thing Jayachandran will do is alerting the second half of the coin—that is the leader of the second faction of the syndicate."

"Exactly." Aravind concurred. "We will have to first confirm if J.B. is actually Jayachandran Bohra or not, find out the leader of the second faction of the syndicate, the modus operandi of the syndicate, their motive(s), the butcher guy, also more circumstantial evidence against both the head of the second unit of the syndicate and Bohra. Then only we can go ahead with the legal proceedings of this case in the court."

"Most importantly, we'll have to find out what do they actually do to all those girls." Hinduja concluded in a firm tone.

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Any thoughts?

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