Sophia's Freedom

Prologue: The Call

Today started out as a good day. I was way getting ready to visit the Indian Military Academy. My son is getting commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Indian Armed Forces and he has specially requested, that I and Tribeni Dada be the first person who should place the insignia over his shoulder. I cannot deny his request. Ever since I could remember, he never asked me for anything. This was the first time he made such a request and as a proud father, there is no greater achievement than to see my son’s dream getting fulfilled.

The prospect was enough to make me look forward to the day. There was nothing that could bring me down. As I was soaking in this aura of positivity, I received that fateful call which brought back memories of the distant past and rendered shivers down my spine. 

Someone called me from Satara. District of Maharashtra. He identified himself as SSP Adam Harper and asked me details about Somjit Banerjee. Despite being 6 years, the memory of that horrific incident was still fresh in my mind. We encountered the cruelest and ugliest of humanity that cursed day. The day was not cursed because it was a day of great loss and misfortune, it was etched in red in my mind because we saw the worst of humanity that day.

I felt a rush of guilt and pain on remembering how we failed to protect the family who lost their lives that day. On that tragic day, we were so intent and focussed on saving Abhinu’s life, we never saw the possibility and danger lurking on the 3 lives at stake. The devil manipulated and confused everyone. 9 of the smartest persons in the state never realized his true intentions or saw his true face until it was too late.

After we broke open the door of the Banerjee residence, the gruesome scene that was in front of my eyes, gave me nightmares for the next few days. Even though during my days with the underground, as a militant rebel, I have seen a lot of deaths. I might have the blood of a lot of innocent men, women, and children in my hands too. Once a whole village was wiped out in a single night and just like a cold-blooded killer, that I had become, I never did react to it, but I was not sure why I was reacting this way today.

I wonder what that 13-year-old girl who was with us, when we entered the Banerjee residence, must be feeling. The sight in front of my eyes shook my very spirit. The bodies of Darika and Garima were lying lifelessly on the floor with their faces down.

Mrs. Banerjee was taking the support of the pillar and was bleeding profusely. Her face and clothes were soaked in blood. It felt like she was trying her level best to hold on to dear life. Her wrist was slit, the severed blood vessels were sticking like corrugated pipes through the clotted blood. By the looks of her wounds, it felt like she was also tortured but somehow, she was trying her level best to hold on to dear life. She was lying like a butchered animal in a waste of blood.

The Banerjee’s 11-year-old twin daughters, Darika and Garima had their hands tied up together behind their back and were lying with their faces down, their mouth gagged and a dark piece of cloth blindfolding them. The killer must not have wanted them to see their death. Someone had shot them on their thighs first and then in the middle of the forehead.

Joe’s friend pulled up the lifeless body of Darika on his lap. Her hair was red-blond stained and discolored when he picked her up. Her face was bruised, covered with huge blotches.

I could see that Commander Christopher had picked up Garima on his lap too and then he spoke the dreadful words, "I cannot feel any pulse on her. She is gone." He tried to remove the blood-ridden hair off her face and then he shrieked "WAIT A MINUTE... I think that bastard had shot her on the face."

I looked carefully and figured out that Darika had also been shot on her head too. Nishi Babu touched her chest to check if he could feel a heartbeat, and then he shrieked “Her Rib cage has been fractured” There was a gunshot wound on her thighs and I saw that Vikash was trying to remove her hair off her face and shouted “She has also been shot but” I saw Vikash taking a closer look and then shouted “looks like the bullet just grazed her skull”

I saw that Garima was lying in a pool of blood before the Commander pulled her up on his lap, a great mat of blood had spread like a bib all over her. Some brain matter had exploded from the back of her skull too and splattered on the Persian carpet. The lifeless body of Darika on Commander Christopher’s lap made me feel as if some ungainly life-sized doll was in his arms.

At first glance, we felt that their eldest daughter Aamaya was responsible for the death of the 3 of them, as she and Joe have been missing for the past 6 hours and we had no clue of their whereabouts. However, when I stepped on to help Mrs. Banerjee and tried to stop the blood loss she kept on moving my hands away and mumbled, "Please protect Sophia and Aamaya from that monster."

I tried to ask her "Monster? Whom are you talking about?"

The only word that came from her mouth was "So. Soam... soam..."

And with those words, there was a deafening silence that filled the room as Mrs. Banerjee's struggling breathing sounds came to a halt and she took her last breath.

What is worse was that when Mr. Banerjee reached the residence, the investigating team concluded that the 3 of them were murdered by their eldest daughter in a fit of rage and has run away.

Further, when Mr. Banerjee asked them about the whereabouts of his youngest daughter Sophia, they had no clue. They went to the hospital where Sophia was admitted and the doctors outrightly denied that any patient by the name of Sophia Banerjee was ever admitted to their hospital. The Officer in Charge of the investigation even asked Mr. Banerjee if he could give him a photograph of Sophia so that they could try to locate her. The irony in all this was Mr. Banerjee had no picture of Sophia with him. The cops searched the house for a picture and there was not a single photograph of Sophia in that house too. The family photo that was present in the hall had Mr. and Mrs. Banerjee, Aamaya, Darika, and Garima but there was no Sophia.

What exactly happened there… what was strange in all this was it had been 8 years now and the cops were still unable to locate the where-about of Aamaya. She is still missing. Sophia or whoever the child was, is also nowhere to be found.

I was pretty sure Sophia existed as I had definitely met her a week ago in Mother Teresa Hospital. She was physically abused and was lying in a coma.

However, the question still remained… How did Sophia and Aamaya vanish without a clue?

How did the records of Sophia vanish from the hospital?

The child I met in the hospital, was she really Sophia or someone played a trick with all of us making us into thinking that some random child was named Sophia?

Did Sophia really exist or was it a character Mr. Banerjee created to protect his family so that the cops are unable to find any proof that the family was responsible for the gruesome a***e of a child whose Identity we were still a mystery?

The incident reminded me of the famous quote “The greatest trick the devil ever played was to make the world believe that he existed”

I guess you might be wondering who I am and what was this incident all about. I guess it’s time to go back and start from the beginning. How the whole thing started.

BACK TO THE BEGINNING…

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