Sophia's Freedom

Chapter 31 : The Meeting

I was not sure if mom really meant whatever she promised Monika. Attempting a rescue of a child would require immense planning and planning a rescue in such a short time is out of the question. What was she planning to do?

Mom asked everyone politely to take their seat, and gave each a copy of the xeroxed notes of Abhinu's diary and requested everyone to go through it. The number of pages that she gave them was less compared to the actual amount of pages that were in the journal. 

There was pin-drop silence for the next hour and all we could hear was the sound of continuous flipping of pages.

Capt. Sagar was the first to react, "Ma'am, what nonsense is this?"

Mom replied in a calm tone, "It is not nonsense. This is true. I went to meet the child to confirm everything." She paused and that asked him a counter-question "Tell me one thing, when you went to meet the child the other day, who do you think the child was."

"It was Abhinu Banerjee. Lt. Col. Sujoy Banerjee's son… Of course, he looked a little bit different though… but you know kids and their fashion goals these days…" he replied.

"Are you absolutely sure that he was Lt. Col. Banerjee's son and no one else." Mom asked.

"Of course!!! how can I forget him? I trained him in basketball..." he replied.

"Did you happen to see his long hair and the punctured mark on his left nostril? A boy might have long hair, but would he wear a nose ring? Besides his hair appeared well nourished and maintained to be a boy’s hair."

Capt. Sagar was lost for words and kept mum.

At this point, Dr. Sen interrupted, "There is something I want to inform all of you.  Prior to any hospital admission each patient or his guardian was supposed to fill in a form with the patient’s detail, and in this case the child was declared as male. But when I was examining him, I found that his male genitalia system was missing." 

She paused for a while and continued "I ran certain checks and finally concluded that the complete genitalia system was surgically removed, and a v****a was constructed in its place. I can bet my career that whoever performed the surgery had done an exceptionally good job in constructing the v****a. The surgery was so perfect that only a good gynaecologist will be able to tell that the v****a has been artificially constructed. Besides that, his body has also undergone numerous cosmetic surgeries. His blood tests also revealed excessive amount of artificial female hormone TESTOPEL."

This was the 5th time in the past 3 weeks, I heard this word. What exactly is this TESTOPEL?

I turned towards Dr. Sen and enquired, "Can you tell me what a TESTOPEL is, please?"

She replied, "TESTOPEL stands for testosterone pellets. They are a part of hormone replacement therapy medicines. They are about the size of a grain of rice, and a doctor will implant them under the skin or inject them via a syringe. These pellets contain crystallized testosterone and deliver a steady, low dose of this hormone to the individual for up to 6 months at a time. These pellets are used during gender reassignment surgery, mostly boy’s transition to girls."

Monika interrupted loudly to put a break in the proceeding, "He doesn't want to be a girl. He wants to remain ABHINU, they forcefully injected him with that medicine and another medicine called Estradiol every 6 months. They keep threatening him that if he doesn't take the medicine, they are going to kill Uncle Banerjee."

"Estradiol, that medicine leads to change in the human body. Anyone who takes that steroid, will start having feminine features like the enlarged chest and waist and it stops the growth of the body and facial hair, etc," replied Dr. Sen.

"Hold on... Dr. Sen" Interrupted the elderly man who was sitting quietly on the couch and then he asked Monika "Uncle Banerjee... why would Mr. Banerjee threaten him that he will kill himself if Abhinu doesn't take the medicines..."

"No uncle... it's not Mr. Banerjee that I am referring to... it's Lt. Col. Banerjee... Abhinu's dad... whom everyone thinks that he is dead..."

"What are you talking about... Col. Sujay Banerjee is alive?"

Yes, dad... he is alive... Abhinu told me that his dad was kept in captivity by Abhishek Dada..." Before Monika could continue that elderly man growled "We must rescue the colonel from the hands of that Monster..." 

Before the elderly man could continue Miss Sengupta spoke "Lt. Col. Banerjee is safe now from the clutches of Abhishek Banerjee and his gang..." she paused again and continued "A team of officers from the ATS Pune was able to rescue him a few weeks ago, he is currently getting treated in a private facility under the supervision of the DCP AdamH."

At that moment the other elderly gentleman who introduced himself as Mr. N.N. reacted and said "Miss Sengupta... did you inform the Army headquarters about it...?"

Miss Sengupta began to narrate everything that AdamH told me the other day and then Mom added "Sir... I don't think we should inform the army headquarters right now... we really don't know who is behind all of this and I recently I came to know from Monika that there was another child before whom they raised like a girl", Mom differed to Miss Sengupta’s suggestion.

She further added, "Joe told me that you have been searching for this child for about 7 years but some very higher-ups interfered and asked you to forget this case." 

"After all of this, maybe we still believe that the family deserves to be punished for their involvement in the criminal act. I think we have enough proof of their participation." mom tried to conclude.

“Surely, there should not be any disagreement”, Vikash interjected and continued "Aunty, being the prime suspect, should be punished for her wrongdoings… after all, that's what Mr. Banerjee have in mind. He is already angry with Aunty and he will definitely make sure of that."

I saw my Mom and Miss Sengupta smirk. Miss Sengupta responded with a silly expression, "Do you think Mr. Banerjee is so dumb or naive. For 6 years his nephew was forced to live in the house as a girl, not only live as a girl, but eventually, they performed surgeries on his nephew to transform him into a full fledged girl... and he did not even try to oppose his wife to stop all this nonsense. I can bet that both husband and wife are perpetrators of the crime."

The elderly gentlemen, sitting on one of our single sitter sofas, asked "Well Mrs. Christopher, what do you suggest. Do you have anything in mind?"

“I went to meet the child before this meeting to check a few details and confirm the reality and the truth about how he ended up in the hospital. I came to know from him that on Sunday morning, the day he was admitted to the hospital, they somehow figured out that he managed to bounce the bindings, so they tied him up again and placed a collar over his neck. It was so tight that he found it difficult to breathe and about 30 minutes later he passed out" Mom replied.

"Do you want to know what happened on the night after the basketball match. If you hear about it, an extreme feeling of anger and hate towards the members of this family will be generated in you".

Mom looked at Monika and continued, "I know you have a rapport with the members of the family, but she was the perpetrator of that night’s episode."

"Mom, I know what they did to Sophia that night." I tried to respond.

Everyone looked at me except Vikash who had also seen the video, depicting events aftermath of the basketball match.

Mom looked at me in disbelief and yelled, "AND YOU DON'T HAVE THE DECENCY TO TELL US ABOUT IT. YOU STUPID BOY."

Alarmed at mom's rage, dad intervened and asked what exactly happened. Mom looked at me and said, "Okay, but if the story is different than what you know, please tell your version."

Mom started "The girls were angry at Abhinu because they concluded that he was the reason, they lost the match. Their only chance at getting a recommendation with the Sports body was doomed." 

"So, after the match, Mrs. Banerjee made him stand on his knees while Garima tie him up, both hands and feet. Then she ordered the youngest one Darika to put a collar with a chain on his neck and tie the other end to the window grill. He began to request aunty not to do such a thing to him, but the 2 younger ones slapped him on his face which made him fall to the ground. Darika put her foot on his face and told him, that is where he belongs in that house. If that was not enough, what they did further was the most shameful of all." 

"They gave him a choice of task, either he should clean their shoes by l*****g them or each member of the family would whack him with a cane. Each member would whack him 3 times for each point he scored. He decided to get whacked instead of the disgusting task. They stuffed a stocking into his mouth and started to hit him making sure he couldn't shout at all."

"Then they put a plate of food on the floor and told him to eat it when he gets hungry. But with the stuffed cloth in his mouth and the length of the chain attached to the collar in his neck, it stopped him from reaching the plate, and he couldn't eat a morsel. Once they were done, all of them left the room except Darika. She was not content with the punishment inflicted on Abhinu and forced him to lick her shoes following another round of beating. Aamaya was a silent spectator in all this. Again at 6 am in the morning when everyone was about to leave for Kolkata, Darika came again and gave him a few more slaps and made him rub his nose on her shoes again and left for Kolkata..."

As Mom completed her account detailing the events of the night of the Basketball match, everyone appeared dumbstruck as the cruelty unleashed by the members of the Banerjee family, especially the youngest one Darika, were utterly preposterous. 

Mom detailed her description exactly as I and Vikash saw in the recording. The silence becomes unendurable and deep down in my mind I kept praying that someone should suggest an infallible plan to rescue Sophia from this family.

A part of me was happy that Abhinu's dad was safe and maybe in a few days, he will be united with his dad.

                                                                        TO BE CONTINUED…

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