Even an hour ago, Bibhu didn’t know that he would murder a young woman at the behest of a man he regarded as his leader.

Binoy Bag, the leader, had called him to the office of his cold storage depot in the evening, for a special session. Just back from the party headquarters in Kolkata, he looked very perturbed and agitated, and didn’t so much as greet him as Bibhu took a seat before him. It was evident he was mulling over something.

Did you come across their meeting on the way?

Yes.

Was that rendi speaking?

Yes.

I can’t bear her any more. I wish I could gag her now.

Then he brought down his tone and whispered something barely intelligible. Bibhu was startled.

Would it be the right thing to do now?

That’s the only way. Or you’re going to lose this vast fiefdom. Would you like that?

But the farmers are in a very furious state. They can’t forget losing their land.

We need to kill the movement at any cost.

There’s sure to be a backlash.

That’s not your problem. I’ll manage that. You know me. And this time I’ll execute it in a novel way. There’ll be four professionals to help you. All from outside.

Do I know them?

No. And you needn’t know them either. They will arrive at the night-guards’ camp at exactly eleven tonight.

Tonight?

Yes. It’s her last night. All you have to do is show the rendi to them. They’ll take care of the rest.

Bibhu had agreed after some thought. He knew Binoy-da would get his plan executed anyway, with or without him. Frankly, he didn’t want to lose favour.

Call me after you’re done.

Bibhu had left immediately after the conversation. Only a few hours to go and he would be there, in the dead of night, with his assigned task. But Bibhu was not at all keen. She’s just sixteen, and simple and innocent. True she had raised the leader’s hackles with her activism in the region. Yet he could not accept the way the party seemed to have singled her out and focused on her. And why bring in contract killers from outside when there are dozens right here to do the deed? And who was funding the operation?

2

The killers arrived in a jeep at exactly eleven. Muscular, rugged-looking, all drunk. Biharis it seemed. Or may be from UP. In any case, they were not Bengalis. Bibhu was taken aback by their irreverence. He tried to strike a rapport with them, but they barely paid him any attention.

At half past four, as always, she appeared in the corner of the large field. This was the hour when the womenfolk in this countryside went out to relieve themselves under cover of night’s darkness.

Bibhu alerted the group. In the darkness she was just a silhouette, and they could discern her movements. As if in reflex, they raced towards her. There was muffled noise, some resistance, a groan, and finally a deathly silence. When Bibhu appeared at the scene, she was lying in a pool of blood.

He called the leader from his cell phone.

Done.

Any problem?

Not much. But your boys had raped her before the job they were to perform.

Oh my God! So where were you then?

I was watching them from a distance.

Is she dead?

Not really. She’s breathing.

She needs to done away with.

But your boys have left.

Why don’t you do it yourself?

I’ve no experience.

It’s easy. Just get some petrol or diesel, douse her body, and set it alight. Be quick!

But I was not supposed to do this!

This is not the time for argument Bibhu!

They said you had paid them only for a thrashing …

But the rape has altered the situation. If she survives she’ll spill the beans. You’ll be in trouble. I’ll be in trouble. Our party will get a bad name. So please do as I say. What’s there to be afraid of? It will be light very soon.

So Bibhu murdered her. The living body writhed one last time in response to the heat of the fire. Bibhu just performed it mechanically, it was simply an assigned job. He realized his crime only when the fire, having devoured the body, began to simmer. He mounted his motor-cycle and rode away, feeling paralysed from head to toe. He seemed to lose control over his vehicle. The sky was clearing over the horizon, and the countryside was waking up. The whole area was clad in mist. He accelerated, not feeling the December cold in the slightest.

Bibhu stopped in front of the leader’s house. He was impatient to see him. But the leader emerged only after half an hour.

I’m very nervous, Binoyda!

You need not worry. Go home and take some rest. See me at the cold storage depot in the evening. I’m going to call the police.

As he was leaving, the leader called him back. Not a word to anyone okay? And remember, you murdered her!

Bibhu was dumbfounded! How could he say such a thing! Bibhu was never a killer, nor would he ever be one. He hated the idea of killing. Oh, what a hard time he had had killing her. And he did it shoddily.

3

The police arrived at around eleven in the morning, after the whole neighbourhood had collected around the body of Sarasi Khotel. The body was charred beyond recognition, from neck to knee. Only her face remained, as if to inform that this charred lump was her.

The police immediately tried to clear the pandemonium with their batons and shouts, but the people would not budge. The leader was there, and some men were jeering at him. He whispered something to the police officer. The police promptly carried the body into the van and left the scene in a hurry, without so much as interrogating anybody. People burst into fury as the police slipped away. By now the crowd had swelled many times over, with people coming in from various directions from the surrounding villages.

In the afternoon, Bibhu met the leader.

Why did you rape her?

It was your boys!

Don’t lie. I’ve checked with them. You enjoyed her first, and then they took her one by one.

Bibhu protested. Do you believe that?!

I don’t believe anybody, you know that very well.

But …

Forget it. What’s done is done. As long as you’re with us, I’ll not let anybody touch you. They can’t prove she was raped. You have charred her well. A nice job.

But the opposition called a strike across the state to protest the atrocity. The leader floated a suicide theory, and the police corroborated it. But it was clearly hogwash. The media and intellectuals, for the first time in a long while, chimed together and labeled this a vindictive murder to thwart the movement that the villagers had launched to protect their land in the wake of the land acquisition drive by the government for creating a “special economic zone”. The demand for punishing the culprit began to grow louder and louder as the days passed. Finally the government ordered a CID enquiry.

CID officers visited the spot of the murder, and collected things that the police had left behind or not cared to pick up. Like some tufts of hair, or a broken bangle. One day they came with a sniffer dog. In the face of a huge crowd, the dog began running along a path that led to the leader’s house. An officer stopped the dog mid-track. For days thereafter, they interrogated various people here and there, though concentrating more on Sarasi’s family members. They summoned her parents, cousins, aunts, the whole lot of them, to their Kolkata office and asked them all kinds of odd questions. They enquired about the size of her undergarments. Soon the CID came around to the conclusion that it was murder, but Sarasi’s father was involved in it.

This triggered off another round of protest. The CID went into retreat, and the chief minister, in the course of a heated debate in the assembly, announced that the murder would be investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation, as demanded by the opposition.

It was six months since the murder.

4

“Now we have cause to worry,” the leader said to Bibhu, who had come to meet him. “We have no control over them. I’ll give you a crash course on what to say to which questions, in case they interrogate you.”

Bibhu was a bit startled. “Why would they interrogate me of all people? The CID guys did not ask me anything.”

But I suspect they will net you in the end.

Why?

Don’t get nervous. They can track me down too. Am I afraid of that? You’ve got to face them up front, and under no circumstances can we divulge anything. Say, if they ask you, “Do you know Sarasi”, how would you answer that?

Bibhu was stuttering.

No fumbling! You should say, “Yes, I know her.” Since you live in the same village, it’s just normal that you know her as a neighbour. Right?

Bibhu nodded.

You’ve got to listen to each question minutely before you venture an answer, and you have to answer without any ambiguity, so they don’t get any clue. Understand?

Bibhu nodded again.

The problem with them is that they know a lot of tricks, and can easily push you into a spot.

Should I slip out of here and stay elsewhere for a while?

That would make you even more of a suspect in their eyes.

But I don’t understand why they should look for me. I’m no criminal. I have no police record.

The leader burst out laughing at this. But he reassured him at the same time.

5

It was almost a week, and there was no sign of any CBI team. Then one day the rains descended with all the boisterousness. It poured incessantly. Confined to his room, Bibhu felt a sense of relief from the fear that had been haunting him all these days. He felt so grateful for the rain! The downpour seemed to provide him the sense of security that he had sorely lacked so long. The CBI would not dare this rain, and he was safe. He wished the rain would continue for days on end, and lead to a flood.

He had a dream at night. He was in alien territory, some people were mobbing him. Not a single friendly face anywhere. All of them were casting slurs on him. He was afraid they would lynch him.

He awoke to his wife’s shake. Why are you weeping?

Bhibu sat up on his bed, and looked at his wife. He looked distressed. Slowly, he returned to his senses. It’s a bad dream, he said.

Was somebody bashing you up in the dream?

Not exactly. But I was in a trapped situation.

You’re a tiger at daytime, and an earthworm at night, his wife joked. Do you know what time it is?

Has the rain stopped?

Yes, the sky has also cleared.

Bibhu shook instantly. The ball of fear exploded inside his body.

As he was sipping tea, he heard some people go by his house. They were talking among themselves that the CBI team had landed in the village just a while ago.

6

After a thorough search at the spot of the murder, the team began to interrogate the people about a make-shift camp.

Sarasi’s body had been found in the site of the upcoming economic zone of an industrialist for whom the government recently had acquired a huge tract of land from the local farmers, against their will. Soon after the acquisition, a construction company began to fence off the land. The workers of the company were slogging away in full steam, round the clock. There was a row of generators to provide electricity at night. But the disgruntled farmers, often in small groups, attacked the site and tried to push down the wall to reclaim their land. So the administration posted some policemen who would patrol the site at daytime. As the night descended, they would retire to the local panchayat office. And then came the night guards, who were local toughs employed by the party on the industrialist’s behalf. It was these guards who had set up a camp with earthen walls and polythene sheet roofing, ostensibly to retire to after their spell of duty.

So where was that camp? When did the people see it last? Who dismantled it? Why? Where was the duty roster? Where were the night guards retiring to now? The four officers spread out in different directions, and interrogated the local people persistently. After two days, they discovered, with help from the night guards, the exact site of the erstwhile camp. It stood back a little, off the project site, alongside a bend on the erected wall, and was now covered over with a sprouting thicket of shrubs. Even after all these months, the investigating team found some newspapers scraps, straw and country liquor bottles.

On the same day, they took away Pacha, the head night guard and Balai, the businessman who supplied the generators. Not arrest, an officer told the people who were present then, they needed to make elaborate enquiries. Pacha was the party’s most trusted action man, and a local terror.

They were both released the next evening. But they looked devastated, pale and physically abused.

What did they ask you?! Bibhu was very eager to know.

Pacha refused to divulge any thing. He was panic-stricken.

Why are you not saying anything?

They’ve warned us not to say a word of our experience to anybody, or they’ll put us behind bars.

Did they torture you?

No answer.

Just tell me if they beat you up.

Still no answer.

Have you forgotten who I am? Have you forgotten all that I’ve done, my party’s done, for you?

Pacha looked at him helplessly.

Fuming, Bibhu drove straight to his leader’s house.

He’s just left, the leader’s wife said.

Bibhu thought for a while, and then started his motorcycle. At Balai Das’s home, the leader was talking to Balai. Like Pacha, Balai was unwilling to say much, but he was replying in bits. May be it was for the leader’s ears.

They were asking me where I got my diesel from, and if I used it for anything else except my generators.

What did you tell them?

I just told them the truth.

Why? Did they beat you up?

They had the idea that the killer used my diesel that night.

Any other questions that they put to you?

No.

The leader and Bibhu left him. They were out on the road now, enveloped in darkness. They spoke in hushed tones for quite a while, and then dispersed in different directions.

In an hour, Bibhu was fleeing on a bicycle under cover of the night. He had taken only a bag slung across his shoulder, and a flashlight in his right hand. The night was eerily silent and dark. It was sultry, the sky covered over with rumbling clouds. It might rain any moment. While he was cycling through the marketplace – the shops were already shuttered, and there was no sign of light anywhere – he heard someone calling him by his name, loudly. He stopped, as if in reflex, and looked around to see who it was. But before he knew it, some people pounced on him, and led him into a police van that was waiting in a corner.

He knew the CBI had finally arrested him.

7

Two muscular, menacing-looking intelligence officers interrogated him that very night. They subjected him to questions, one after another – so fast that Bibhu had a hard time replying. He was speaking up along the leader’s tutored line, but all of a sudden one of the officers gave him a mighty slap on his face, and fell off his seat. He felt so humiliated, but he became even more determined to defend himself at any cost. But now none of the officers were asking him anything. They were glaring at him in their brutish way, and it seemed they would rain blows on him at any moment. A rumbling sound emanated from his stomach. He remembered he had not eaten anything tonight. He felt hungry.

Why did you kill her?

The other officer shot the same question twice in quick succession.

I didn’t kill her, sir. Believe me.

A fierce blow now landed on the other side of his face. He reeled under its impact.

Bibhu broke down in the wee hours of the night.

I did it, sir, but I never knew I would do it.

Did you rape her?

No sir.

Are you sure?

Yes sir.

A uniformed man brought food and water for him. Bibhu saw the officers leaving the room. Bibhu fell upon the food hungrily, and then collapsed exhausted on a cot he was led to. He slept until ten the next morning. Deep sleep.

The next day, a new, but now dignified-looking officer interrogated him. Bibhu was tired from the morning’s ordeal at the court: he had to stand before the judge in the court, where the CBI counsel strongly advocated a remand in their custody, and the judge readily agreed. But this was only to be expected. What he did not anticipate was the court premises being inundated with people screaming “Hang Bibhu! The murderer!” The police had a tough time taking him in and out of the court.

The officer was very soft-spoken and calm.

Have you had your breakfast?

Yes sir.

Would you like to have a cup of tea while we chat?

No sir, thank you.

I know my colleagues tortured you last night. But I don’t believe in violence. If you’re honest in your replies, I can assure you that you’ll get fair treatment from me. Get my point?

Bibhu nodded acquiescingly.

Have you seen today’s newspaper?

Yes sir.

Your party has disowned you. Are you a member of the party or not?

Officially, I’m not a member. But I’m an important man of the local party.

How?

Ask anybody in my locality and he’ll testify to it. The zonal secretary always confides in me. I’m his right-hand man.

Who’s your zonal secretary?

Why, Binoy Bag.

The same man who says you’re not a member of the party?

Yes.

So he disowns you now. He says the party cannot be blamed for your crime.

Bibhu lapsed into a deep silence.

Are you a Marxist?

No. Nobody in the party is.

How were you drawn to the party?

I was picked up by Bag while I was living idly without any job after my M.A.

What do you actually do for your living?

I’m a full-time party worker.

Does your party pay you anything?

No.

Do you run an employment agency?

Not me. My wife does it.

She gives jobs to local youths.

Yes.

She provided all the workers and night guards at the project site?

Yes.

How much commission does she get every month from those night guards?

Just four hundred rupees sir.

How many boys are there on her rolls?

I can’t say exactly sir. She keeps the accounts of all these things.

The officer looked miffed. Don’t try to be smart! Just tell me the number. I’ve got the figure with me you know, I’m just cross-checking.

About one hundred.

The officer did a quick mental calculation. That’s a neat little income! The party’s gift for your loyal service?

Bibhu did not respond.

Does your leader take any cut from your income?

No sir.

Whom does he feed upon?

The construction company, the traders who supply bricks, cement, sand ….

So, why did you kill that young woman?

The hired goons left her just short of dead. I had to complete the task on my leader’s instructions.

Did you use petrol or diesel?

Petrol sir.

Where did you get it from?

From my motorbike.

When you ignited her body, there was quite a fire for sure. Didn’t anyone see that?

No sir, the wall in front was so high that nobody would have noticed it.

What about the night guards who were patrolling outside?

I can’t say. But none of them ever asked me anything. Maybe they were asleep at that late hour.

Do you think your leader got you framed in the murder?

I’m not sure. Why would he do that?

So that you, who are not officially a member, could be passed off as the murderer, and the party gets no dirt.

Bibhu fell into thought, and did not reply.

You say he planned it that way? The killers told me they were paid only for thrashing her. I hesitated a lot before setting fire to her battered body.

The officer brought out a piece paper with a cell phone number.

Did you call your leader on this number?

Yes.

Is it his cell phone?

He uses several cell phones, but he asked me to call this number on that night.

The officer closed the interrogation for the day, and thanked Bibhu before he left.

8

It was a bad night for Bibhu. His head was throbbing with so many things that at times he thought it would burst. Never before had he been through such a heightened experience. Would he have a heart attack now? Or a stroke? Several times during the night he found himself sitting up on the bed and worrying, feeling like a caged animal.

The night must have advanced, but it was a city night. And he had no knowledge of the night’s patterns here. When he had set fire to Sarashi’s body, he knew subconsciously that it would be daylight in half an hour. So he had done it as fast as he could, in a certain, calculated way. And he had not encountered anybody on the road while he headed to the leader’s house.

The officer sent for him exactly at ten. Bibhu had taken a bath to calm down. But his eyes were smarting under sleeplessness. So when he entered the interrogation room he did not notice anyone at first. Then he was gobsmacked to see Binoy Bag, his leader, sitting dark-faced in a chair. Bibhu felt elated at first, automatically, thinking him to be his saviour, but his hopes sank immediately when he remembered that this was the man who had disowned him just a day ago.

Please take your seat. Bibhu sat across from his leader.

I hope you know this fellow, Mr. Bag, the officer now said in his elegant voice.

I think I’ve seen him.

Do you know him?

Not in the way you want to allege. I’m a political man, and a lot of people come to me everyday for their problems. It’s not humanly possible to remember everybody. But yes, I’ve seen this fellow. I think he lives in my locality.

He’s not associated with your party?

No. Never. I’d surely know him if he was a party member.

But he says he was your right-hand man.

Binoy Bag laughed loudly. He can say many things like that, but that does not prove anything!

Are you in a proper frame of mind, Mr. Bag?

Of course I am!

So how did you then order this fellow to burn Sarashi’s body?

Don’t be stupid! You’ve arrested me illegally, and now you make all kinds of wild allegations!

The officer cast a quick look in Bibhu’s direction. Bibhu was fuming, and ready to explode.

Well then, what did you do on that night?

I did what most people do at night. I was sleeping.

And then you woke up at somebody’s call?

I don’t remember. It has been quite a few months now.

You called the police. Do you remember that?

Yes.

Who informed you of the murder?

Somebody, I can’t exactly remember who it was.

Or this fellow? Think hard, Mr. Bag.

How could this fellow call me? I don’t think I’ve ever interacted with him.

Bibhu suddenly rose from his seat and lunged at him with a savage look and ferocity. He began to rain blows on his head and body. “Fucking bastard! I’m going to kill you,” he snarled while continuing with his bashing operation. In a few minutes Binoy Bag had several bloody bruises and abrasions, and a bleeding nose. The officer stayed cool and passive in his chair, and not for once did he try to stop Bibhu. After a while Bibhu himself stopped, his body trembling, and eyes tearful.

I hope you know him now, the officer said in his cool voice, without a hint of glee.

The leader, haggard and exhausted from the beating, said, I’ll go to court and show all these signs of torture there.

9

The next few days were to be a continuum of travails for Bibhu. He would once again be produced in court; in the court premises a huge, unruly crowd would jeer at him, the police would have a tough time protecting him from public wrath, and then the court would send him to jail custody; in the jail he would be beaten black and blue by the jail-mates, following which he would be transferred to the jail hospital, where a posse of armed police would watch over him round the clock. His health would improve slowly each day, and then one night, in the solitude of the ward, he would remember his wife and children whom he had not seen for quite a while. Meanwhile, his party (he still liked to call it his party) would see in the arrest of its leader a big conspiracy, and arrange dharnas, demonstrations and meetings across the state in support of their leader. The party boys would even assemble in huge numbers at the court premises to intimidate the judge hearing the case. The party, an ally of the government at the centre, would demand the removal of the CBI officer who was instrumental in uncovering the skeletons one after another.

But for now, Bibhu was blissfully unaware of all these things. He had had a catharsis bashing the leader, and seemed to be at peace with everything that had happened and would now happen.

He knew he was going to go through hell now and hereafter.

But he felt so tired now that he dragged himself to bed for a good night’s sleep.