Death in Pakur
1065 Words
Death in Pakur :It was raining and I was resting at home enjoying the rain. These days I take life lightly and try and enjoy the small beauties of life. Anyways there is no friends and family to create tension in my life. I am alone and perhaps lonely too. But I prefer it this way. I lead my life my way. Perhaps I would have preferred some good and loyal friends to lighten up my life. It was one such evening my friend in the police called up seeking my help in a case. It was a murder case in a small place called Pakur in Jharkhand state. I told him that the doctor has advised me against travel still I would ask him about travel to Pakur. He assured me travelling and staying would be most comfortable for me. I asked him to email the details of the case to me. I also told him that since I need money for my medicines and Insulin so I would charge fees of Rs.15000 plus expenses. He agreed and I was happy to earn some money again. I received the mail in night and the story goes this way: There was this man living in Pakur with his wife and the wife used to come to Kolkata often. On one such visit she was found dead in her car enroute to Pakur. The police found the car in a desolate place and she was not robbed of her belongings. She was killed with a blunt blow on her head. The driver was missing. It was raining again that day when I left for Pakur with my police friend. It was evening when we reached there. It was a beautiful place covered in lush green harvest and beautiful water bodies. The husband of the murdered lady Shibhunath came to meet us and took us home. It was a mansion and there was a quaint temple beside the house. It was a refreshing sight. Calm cool and serene place to live. We were given a spacious and traditionally decorated bed room to take . What was fascinating in the room was the bed which was a 4 cornered poster bed. Poster bed is the beds which have a ceiling on them. After dinner we retired to our rooms. The dinner itself was elaborate Bengali cuisine of iilish fish and mutton. As we were tired we fell off to deep sleep. Sometime in the night I woke up and stared towards the ceiling and felt the ceiling of the bed was moving towards us. First I thought that I was hallucinating and tried to shrug it off. But after some time I realised that it was no hallucination the ceiling of the bed was actually moving. I nudged my friend up from sleep and we slid down to the floor to safety. I told him everything. We switched on the light and saw that the bed ceiling has not moved even an inch from its original place. I was very surprised as I could not have been so wrong. After sometime we went back to sleep. I could not sleep anymore as I knew I had seen the ceiling moving. It was a beautiful morning after a sleepless night. It was raining without stop and the lush green fields were looking greener and there was water logging everywhere. I went to the temple nearby and god was also looking real and refreshed. I felt a peculiar sense of closeness with the almighty. The puja was in progress and the smell of incense sticks everywhere. I saw Shibhunath sitting quietly and praying. The man from the start had looked suspicious to me. Anyways we did not talk. I decided to speak to the driver’s wife who was missing since the murder day. She was a very innocent lady straight from the village and she told me that they have suddenly received a lot of money by which they have used to rebuild their house in the village and her husband had told her that very soon they would go back to their village forever. I got all the information that was required. I realised that it was an insider job and the investigation has to be tuned that way. My gut feeling was that it was the husband. I turned my attention on him. I did not disclose all this to me police friend. I started digging out truth about him from farm hands and servants. This property of Pskur did not belong to him but his brother and he had usurped it from him. Both did not dislike each other but hated each other’s sight. I visited the brother he stayed in another mansion in Pakur only. He was a aggressive young man but was not the killer. The husband was also not the killer because he was gutless fellow. I also found out that she was a rich lady and her family also lived in Pakur. She had a wife and a daughter from her 1st marriage. Her daughter was 12 years old and stayed with her maternal grandparents and her unmarried masi( mothers sister) I had a chat with the little one and she confessed she knew who had killed her mother. She said in the evening her masi and mother had fought over a50 lakh fixed deposit done by her maternal grand father in her name for her marriage and studies. She saw her mother walk off in a huff and her masi followed her. They reached the corridor and fought again and masi was very angry with her. Her mother was to leave for Kolkata so she went away and masi got busy on the phone. I decided to speak with her masi who turned out to be a very clever person. I confronted her directly by telling her that I knew she had murdered her sister. For a change she broke down and confessed. Criminals always regret what they have done but by then it’s too late. She had killed her sister at her home by hitting her head with a sharp object and then carried her body all the way to the Kolkata highway. She had also killed the poor driver to make it more like a highway murder. Greed spoilt the happiness of two families.
- Writer
