A buried story cremated

It took three days for the Police to find his identity. What appeared as a hit and run case for the poor boy, going on a blind date, had layers of mystery. Each day the Police department had been unfolding such layers, one after the other.

Yogesh Patel got her name from a social network. He was talking to Raveena on his mobile while crossing the Jadavpur 8B bus stand around 6 in the evening when two Tata Sumo speeding from opposite directions smashed him and managed to flee faster than the wind ignoring the traffic signals; the cars carrying the number plates of Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh were discovered in the open nothings on the Eastern bypass, two days later; the numbers did not lead the Police anywhere as the names of owners were fake. Dishonesty is driven with such foolproof honesty.

Just after the incident happened, the angry onlookers, pedestrians were perplexed at the audacity of the drivers.

- God! What is happening in the city!

The Police of West Bengal is often compared with the finest ones in the world. They rushed to the place in minutes. The Police started with zero clues because a) his wallet was nowhere to be found, b) his face was unidentifiable and c) his mobile was broken into pieces; everyone was horrified. The guys in uniform were looking blankly at the crowd. The sergeant shouted:

‘Guys we need your cooperation, if anyone has seen anything, please help…he could have been your relative too!’

Someone came forward and said he saw him talking on the phone while crossing the road. Everyone started blaming the boy, then their generation. Vikas, the sergeant, asked the crowd to stop blaming, criticizing; he and his team managed to dismiss the curious crowd carrying stories to tell.
Luckily Vikas found the sim.

Three days later.

The Police tracked the girl who was talking to Yogesh from a Hotel in Jadavpur; she promptly disappeared when the Police raided the hotel. Went to the room, she’d checked in at 3 in the afternoon as Mrinalini with a fake address, her mobile number was ringing to death. However, through trial and error, the service provider was found; although it was a prepaid sim, Vikas tracked her number in Rajabazar, knocked at the door and found a totally astonished Raveena opening the door.

From her, the Police found some jaw-dropping inputs. She is a sophomore who goes on blind dates with strangers, manages her expenses, like cell, branded clothing, accessories, and so on. He got this guy’s name through a common friend and was waiting for him to arrive at the Hotel, obviously he never came.
In the meantime, Yogesh’s details were easily found from the sim; he was from Gujarat and worked in an IT firm, stayed in Salt Lake City in a PG with friends. The HR was shocked to hear the news; they never inquired because he was on a week’s leave and scheduled to go to his hometown. ‘He was always reticent with low interpersonal skills, but he also came across as a very honest and hardworking person.’

From the contact list, the Police found two important names: Mata and Pita. They were informed. To their horror, the Police did not notice any shock in the tone of Yogesh’s parents, they couldn’t believe they were informing the parents about the demise of their son!

‘Ye to honahi tha… (this was inevitable)’ – this response had not shocked them so much, what followed, did. What Yogesh’s father said loosely translated into English like this:

‘Thank you so much for taking the trouble of finding my son’s address and all. I will send my employees and my two sons to do the rituals…please tell me how much you had to spend… my sons will pay you the amount before leaving; a simple hit and run case.’

‘But who is Srinivas? Do you know him? He is not picking up the phone.’

‘Ah no…I don’t know…must be one of his friends…you please leave it.’

‘I don’t think he was his friend…he stored the name as Srinivas uncle. From the conversation, we could understand that he was your son’s appointed lawyer from whom he was taking advice on issues concerning property. Last two conversations were very heated and your son was found to be blaming him for keeping him in the dark… can you tell me something about this please?’

‘Yes I spoke to him, like you he is also a very nice gentleman. You please leave it’. He hanged.

Vikas, for a moment hated his job because it often exposed him with facts that are cruel and ghastly. How a father can say like this about his son, he wondered. My God! Was that a murder? Is this a murder? Would I eventually be asked to close this case! No way!

When the body was burning in the Kalighat crematorium, in the presence of Yogesh’s two borthers, Vignesh and Jitesh, Vikas was asking questions that refused to escape as the smokes of the body. For a moment he thought of Raveena and felt like throwing up. There was no one mourning for the boy who stored their parents’ names as Mata and Pita. Vikas did not take a rupee from Yogesh’s family.

In a week’s time, the story was inevitably closed as unsolved.