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Authors: Piyush Jha
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duty to empathize with the wretched and poor in India.
After his name was discovered written in blood on a piece of paper, he had been questioned and re-questioned by the police for two straight days, first at the Tank Bunder Police Station, then at the Crime Branch headquarters and finally in the comfort of his small, two-bedroom, sparsely-furnished apartment in Julia Dream Cooperative Housing Society. After ensuring that he had a clean record and knew nothing of the killer’s motive, the police brass had placed him under twenty-four-hour police protection. To escape the shrill-voiced reporters clamouring outside his apartment building thirsting to know how he was feeling, Colasco had decided to stay home until their interest in him died down. Whenever he wanted to step out of his house, he was escorted by a battery of policemen otherwise lined up outside his door. By the fifth day, though, he had had enough of the self-confinement and the crowd of reporters had thinned.
Colasco had been itching to venture out ever since the police investigation had started, not because he was anxious to step into danger, but because he felt that his absence from the slums would be construed as a sign of fear by the slum children who idolized him.
After spending an hour with the children, Colasco went back to his flat, flanked on both sides by a small police contingent led by the now infamous Inspector Virkar, the person who had become the media’s ‘whipping boy’ over the past five days. As he walked braving the mid-morning sun, Colasco read the agony written on Virkar’ s face. Like him, Virkar, too, had become the city’s favourite topic of dinner-table conversations.
Virkar wiped the sweat from his brow. It was an unbearably hot day and the sun beat down relentlessly from the clear sky. He had earlier been summoned to the Crime Branch headquarters to be severely reprimanded for his slip-up with the media and had been forbidden from making any more statements to the press. In fact, he had specifically been advised to avoid all eye contact with the bite-hungry mike-wielders. And though several people had called for Virkar’s resignation, transfer, or at least to have him taken off the case, he had been retained by his seniors.
ACP Wagh had taken Virkar aside and told him not to take things personally. Virkar could have sworn that he saw a small smile playing on Wagh’s fat lips. Though Virkar had simply nodded in obeisance to his boss’s advice, he had actually taken things to heart. Ignoring the barbs flying in all directions, he had sprung into action, determined to not be made a fool of again anytime soon. He had created a squad of crack policemen chosen from various sub-units and had instituted a three-shift, twenty-four-hour supervision module for Nigel Colasco which left no room for any lapses. He had cordoned off Julia Dream Society and furnished every resident with special photo ID cards that were checked every time they came in or went out of the building premises. A far better composite sketch of the suspect, Nandu, aka the Compass Box Killer, had been made with the help of the real Sandesh. This sketch was circulated in the Julia Dream Society and sent to every police station and government office, both small and large. Policemen personally paid a visit to the local political party workers in the slums and chawls under their jurisdiction and asked them to keep a lookout for suspicious people who resembled the police sketch.
A massive naka bandi or road check exercise was launched across Mumbai. Some plainclothes policemen masquerading as Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation workers were stationed across the road from Julia Dream Society, pretending to dig up the road. Virkar had gone as far as to depute two women police constables to dress up as kelewalis who roamed the neighbourhood with tokris laden with bananas, selling them to anyone who looked suspicious. This did get a few sneers from their male colleagues in
After his name was discovered written in blood on a piece of paper, he had been questioned and re-questioned by the police for two straight days, first at the Tank Bunder Police Station, then at the Crime Branch headquarters and finally in the comfort of his small, two-bedroom, sparsely-furnished apartment in Julia Dream Cooperative Housing Society. After ensuring that he had a clean record and knew nothing of the killer’s motive, the police brass had placed him under twenty-four-hour police protection. To escape the shrill-voiced reporters clamouring outside his apartment building thirsting to know how he was feeling, Colasco had decided to stay home until their interest in him died down. Whenever he wanted to step out of his house, he was escorted by a battery of policemen otherwise lined up outside his door. By the fifth day, though, he had had enough of the self-confinement and the crowd of reporters had thinned.
Colasco had been itching to venture out ever since the police investigation had started, not because he was anxious to step into danger, but because he felt that his absence from the slums would be construed as a sign of fear by the slum children who idolized him.
After spending an hour with the children, Colasco went back to his flat, flanked on both sides by a small police contingent led by the now infamous Inspector Virkar, the person who had become the media’s ‘whipping boy’ over the past five days. As he walked braving the mid-morning sun, Colasco read the agony written on Virkar’ s face. Like him, Virkar, too, had become the city’s favourite topic of dinner-table conversations.
Virkar wiped the sweat from his brow. It was an unbearably hot day and the sun beat down relentlessly from the clear sky. He had earlier been summoned to the Crime Branch headquarters to be severely reprimanded for his slip-up with the media and had been forbidden from making any more statements to the press. In fact, he had specifically been advised to avoid all eye contact with the bite-hungry mike-wielders. And though several people had called for Virkar’s resignation, transfer, or at least to have him taken off the case, he had been retained by his seniors.
ACP Wagh had taken Virkar aside and told him not to take things personally. Virkar could have sworn that he saw a small smile playing on Wagh’s fat lips. Though Virkar had simply nodded in obeisance to his boss’s advice, he had actually taken things to heart. Ignoring the barbs flying in all directions, he had sprung into action, determined to not be made a fool of again anytime soon. He had created a squad of crack policemen chosen from various sub-units and had instituted a three-shift, twenty-four-hour supervision module for Nigel Colasco which left no room for any lapses. He had cordoned off Julia Dream Society and furnished every resident with special photo ID cards that were checked every time they came in or went out of the building premises. A far better composite sketch of the suspect, Nandu, aka the Compass Box Killer, had been made with the help of the real Sandesh. This sketch was circulated in the Julia Dream Society and sent to every police station and government office, both small and large. Policemen personally paid a visit to the local political party workers in the slums and chawls under their jurisdiction and asked them to keep a lookout for suspicious people who resembled the police sketch.
A massive naka bandi or road check exercise was launched across Mumbai. Some plainclothes policemen masquerading as Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation workers were stationed across the road from Julia Dream Society, pretending to dig up the road. Virkar had gone as far as to depute two women police constables to dress up as kelewalis who roamed the neighbourhood with tokris laden with bananas, selling them to anyone who looked suspicious. This did get a few sneers from their male colleagues in
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