Sophia's Freedom

Chapter 59 : Rahat's Confession

The commanding voice was enough to calm Sagar sir down and he let go off Rahat, but not before landing a good punch on his face, knocking 3 of his teeth out of his mouth. 

"Start talking..." He growled.

As blood dripped from his battered face, Rahat continued, "I continued monitoring your house, and saw a lot of people gather in your house in the evening. I crossed over the fence, eavesdropped on your conversation, and overheard your plans to trap Mr. Banerjee by digging up the child's past."

"I called up Banerjee sir and informed him of your strategy."

"He told me that the boy will turn 13 in another month, and that we need him alive for the final phase of the surgery... the doctor needs him alive. The day he turns 13, his body’s immune system will be strong enough to withstand a uterus transplant. Once that is complete, he will be the first child in history to be transformed from a boy into a girl. Till date no child had survived a full s*x-reassignment surgery. However, in case of Abhinu, every test conducted on him was successful and so they want the child safe for the final stages of the surgery. Fearing that during the final stages of our experiment we cannot afford to lose our golden goose who is worth 400 thousand US dollars in the international market. Banerjee sir knew that all of you might plan a rescue or something worse, so we planned to take him away to a safe place where none of you could lay your hands on him."

Before continuing further, Rahat started rubbing his neck and begged: "Please can I have some water?"

I saw Sagar sir take out a flask of water attached to his belt. As he was about to hand him the water to drink, dad snatched the bottle from his hand, sat next to Rahat, held him by the collar with his left hand and asked: "Did you give my daughter anything to eat or drink the last 2 days you kept her in your captivity."

I couldn't believe I was in restraint for 2 days and it took them that long to find me. As I was deep in thought, I heard dad's loud voice growl again "I DIDN'T HEAR YOU... WHAT DID YOU SAY?" and saw dad pouring the water from the bottle into the floor. "You are saying something..."

Rahat didn't utter a single word about the water and continued "When we saw everyone leaving the house, I called up sir and informed him about you leaving. He called boudi and told her that he had to leave for Kolkata for some work and asked his elder daughter to be in the hospital. Our plan was to kill the family and incriminate the eldest daughter for it.”

“When everyone’s attention would be diverted at the murder of the family, we would have taken the boy away.”

"Oh my god!!! are you guys serious... how can a father incriminate his elder daughter for the murder of his family... is he really human?" Aunty Sengupta asked.

"I know the reason Miss Sengupta, I will tell you all about it later" she said and then dad asked “And how did you plan to do that?”

“Sir had paid money to the inhouse doctor that night to send him to Mother-Teresa hospital for a check-up which cannot be done there. On the way to the hospital, we were supposed to attack the ambulance and kidnap the boy and the eldest daughter. I was instructed to feed misinformation to the cops that she is in love with your son, and since boudi was prohibiting her from meeting him, she lost her mind and threatened to kill everyone at home. after a few days on the day the boy will have the surgery, I was supposed to call the cops and share her location with them."

"But how could you have proven that she is capable of doing such a thing." Miss Sengupta asked.

"It would have been easy to inculpate her on account of her bad temper. Right after the family shifted to Purulia from Kolkata, she was admitted to a trauma centre and was held there for three months because she assaulted Sophia..." he saw Sagar sir's angry face when he said the word Sophia, "sorry Abhinu... she beat him up with a leather belt till he was unconscious. He was in coma for nearly 3 months. Sir had to bring doctors from abroad to get him treated, during which time his elder daughter was sent off to a trauma centre for anger management therapy."

"So, after his elder daughter left for the hospital, Sir came back home, and we waited for the lights to be turned off at your residence. I made sure that Darika and Garima would be unconscious and not feel a thing by mixing Xanax on their food when we were killing them. But then something unplanned happened. The girls were so excited to know that their punching bag was coming back the next day, they went off to sleep without consuming their food."

Upon hearing this, I was really fuming with rage at Darika and Garima. They had started to take the good nature of Abhinu for granted.

"As the girls slept without taking their drugged meal, we used chloroform to make them lose consciousness,”

Rahat continued. “We tied their hands and sir shot them. The sound of the weapon woke boudi and uncle had to shoot her too and in order to make it look like a t*****e, sir shot the kids first on their legs and then on their head."

“After killing them, we left the house to execute the next plan. The doctor was asked to make sure the ambulance leaves the hospital at exactly 1:00 AM and at 1:15 it would cross the station gate where we would attack the ambulance. Sir waited in Gopaldham lodge, which is right next to the highway, so that when he receives the call from the cops to inform him about the murder of his family he can tell them that he is travelling and would take time to return."

I was stunned, and the shocked expression on the face of every person at that moment must have resembled mine. What we all had just heard is just unbelievable.

"But if your plan was to kidnap Abhinu and the elder daughter, why on earth did you kidnap my son?" asked mom.

"The k********g never happened… When we heard about the k********g, we figured it was you guys who committed it, so he asked me to round up all of our men and capture the weakest link amongst you so that he can make a deal with you to get Sophia back."

Upon hearing the word, Sagar sir shouted again "I am ordering you not to call him by the name."

Before Rahat could say another word, both my Mom and dad began to laugh loudly. Everyone looked at them in a confused look and then Sengupta Aunty asked, “What’s wrong with you two… what’s there to laugh?”

Dad was still unable to control his laughter and replied “Weakest link, my foot… if you guys would not have hit her with the tranquiliser dart… it would have taken at least 7 or 8 guys like this Rahat to kidnap our little Monika. She is a trained level 6 advanced Kalarippayattu fighter and has been trained in weapon and hand-to-hand combat by none other than Gurukkal Sri Shankara Narayana Menon. She is a trained killer herself.”

Sagar sir looked at me and smiled proudly. Rahat continued "I am sorry sir," he folded his palms together in a gesture of seeking forgiveness.

Mom interrupted Rahat and asked "Wait a minute... You don't know where Joe is, we didn't kidnap Joe..." mom looked at Miss Sengupta and continued "I hope you don't have anything to do with this?"

"Nope... I and Babul left for Kolkata that same evening... I arrived today... Babul and his men are reaching back day after tomorrow..." Replied Miss Sengupta.

I saw the worried look on Mom's face, Miss Sengupta touched my mom's arm and replied: "Please trust us, Mrs. Christopher, we are going to find Joe."

She suddenly turned to look at Rahat and asked “I have one question I need to know…?”

Everyone stopped in their tracks and looked at Miss Sengupta “You claim to be a gardener… but how come you know about Xanax, Uterus Transplant, s*x Reassignment Surgery or Immune System… These things only a learned man would know about… You are not a gardener whom you claim to be…”

 “Ma’am do you think the doctor would leave one of his test subjects without anyone to look after him in case there is any medical complications…” he paused and rubbed his dry neck with his hands and continued “I was asked by the doctor to keep a watch on him and occasionally conduct tests to check how tough he is, both physically and mentally. The doctor believes that if the surgery is successful, Abhinu will need to be mentally strong to survive his new life as a woman. I am a fully qualified clinical psychologist.”

What kind of a twisted mentality these guys have? They have ruined the life of a Abhinu for the sake of a twisted experiment.

Suddenly Rahat asked "But how did you find us. No one knows about this place, and we made absolutely sure no one followed us."

Hearing his question Miss Sengupta looked at him, caught hold of him by his tattered shirt and raised him up, and then before any of us could understand, she landed a kick into his kneecap. As he felt down wailing in pain she replied, "You don't need to know how we found this place. Where we are going to send you now, this answer will have no significance."

Dad looked at Mom and continued "Aki, I think you should take her home, she is exhausted and hungry." he looked at me and pinched my cheek softly and said "Sweetie... I made a promise to Abhinu 6 years back about protecting him, and now the time has come."

The man whom Miss Sengupta earlier referred to as Brigadier Shahi started discussing something with Dad, Sagar Sir, and his team and then looked at Mom and said: "Mrs. Christopher, I will drop you home."

As I was following mom, Brigadier Shahi saw me limping and asked me if I needed any help. He picked me up in his arms and as we stepped out of the room.

I saw a few bodies covered in blood lying on the floor. I tried to ignore and shut my eyes to what I just saw. As we walked out of the house, there was a group of people standing outside. It was a huge crowd consisting of about thirty people and of them, some were wearing ragged clothes and a few of them were dressed in sarees and wearing trashy pieces of jewellery.

Their features were not feminine, and they were wearing very heavy makeup. It suddenly dawned on me that these were the friends about whom Koushik dada informed me the other day. 

Suddenly I heard the sound of gunshots coming from inside the room and Brigadier Shahi telling me "Monika... your friend has no need to fear Rahat's group of goons anymore... We have taken care of them... They have been dispersed to their rightful place."

                                                         TO BE CONTINUED…

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