An empty, airless room on the ground floor of Hauz Khas police station was used by both Crime Branch and Special Cell for interrogations. The local police steered clear. On a narrow bed of rough wood, the man called Mona had been stripped down to his underwear and laid out prone in the position the policemen called the “helicopter”. Hari Singh held the suspect’s ankles, knees bent at ninety degrees. Das had his hands pressed down on the suspect’s back, and Zeeshan held the wrists so that the man’s arms were fully extended.
Sushil started, “Tell us where Rajesh is, tell us, tell us now, we’ll break every bone in your body, you motherfucker, we’ll set your cock on fire, we’ll break your teeth, make you swallow them. Tell us where Rajesh is …”
He punctuated his questions with slaps on the face, hooking his fingers under the collarbone and pressing deep. Parveen was standing next to Hari Singh, holding a short, fat stick with which he beat the soles of Mona’s feet in a fast, hard rhythm.
Mona was bawling freely, screaming over and over, “I don’t know, I don’t know.”
Sushil was relentless. “Tell us, tell us, tell us where he is, tell us, tell us, tell us where he is …”
After fifteen minutes of this, Sushil stepped back. The beating stopped. With his victim’s fingers interlocked with his, Zeeshan pleaded in a sweet, placatory voice, “Why don’t you tell us, bhaijaan … tell us and this will stop, you can go home, we don’t want anything to do with you, we want to know where Rajesh is, that’s all.”
Sushil circled back, fuming, shoved Zeeshan aside and said, “Motherfucker won’t talk like this, he’ll talk when he is passing blood through his cock and vomiting on himself. Move, let me have at him.” He slapped Mona hard on the face.
“Rajesh is your friend, right?”
“Yes,’ Mona whimpered.
“He was going around with that girl, Jyoti?”
“Yes.”
“He was fucking raping her, you son of a whore,” Sushil screamed, slapped Mona again. “He fucking killed her.” Another slap. As if in the grip of a blind rage, Sushil held Mona’s face in both hands, jerked it side to side.
“What did he tell you after he killed her?”
“I have not spoken to him since it happened, I have not heard from him,” Mona protested.
“Liar!” Sushil roared in Mona’s face, punched him in the ear. Hari Singh gestured to Sushil with his eyes to tone it down a bit. If they had to arrest the suspect and produce him in front of a magistrate, the beating had to be done without leaving too many marks.
Zeeshan took over, asking gently, “When was the last time you spoke to Rajesh?”
“Two or three days before the girl died, that was the last time I saw him. After that, he was sleeping at his employer’s house, doing night duty.”
“What did you talk about?”
“I don’t remember …” Mona hesitated. Sushil swooped in.
“I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you what I know!” Mona screamed in fear. “I told Rajesh it was bad news, that he should not get involved with such a young girl, but he didn’t listen. He said one day he would run away with the girl, she was in trouble … I asked him what he meant. He said she was just a kid, but she was like a slave, he would free her, and I said what are you talking about, you sound mad. He said, no, you don’t know, he had to do something about it. I said, what can you do, what do you mean? He was silent. This was a few days before he disappeared. I’ve known him for two years, he has never disappeared, I swear I don’t know anything else, I swear.”
“You know where he is, you little piece of shit, you know where he is,” Sushil said. “Give me the stick, I am going to break his head to find out.”
Inspector Kumar poked his head in to see how it was going. Sushil walked over to him.
“Anything?”
“He says he doesn’t know where Rajesh is. But Rajesh had told him he was going to run away with her, the girl was a slave,” Sushil said, breathing hard.
“Okay, break for dinner, food’s here. Tell Zeeshan to stand guard.”
The men gathered in Inspector Kumar’s room and began to eat without ceremony. They were famished.
The news showed the chief minister of Delhi going on a hunger strike outside the secretariat, complaining about how the Central government was interfering with the state. He said to the camera: “I’m a quarter chief minister of half a state.”
The men roared with laughter.
“Whatever you may say of him, he’s got a way with words,” Kumar said.
“He’s not wrong. If Delhi is a state, the police should be under the state government, not the Central government,” Hari Singh said, deftly making a pocket with a roti and dipping it in dal.
“What good would that do?” Kumar asked.
“At least most of the force won’t be deployed as bodyguards for politicians.”
“Boss, you are being cynical. Tell me, if we worked for the Delhi government, we wouldn’t be under the thumb of a vicious, bloodthirsty sarkar, would we?” Hari Singh spoke low, only for Kumar to hear. He feared the government’s reach and vengefulness. For example, he did not trust Parveen. Most policemen were only too glad to play along with a brutal and repressive rule. It suited them just fine.
Unseen by the men, Meera entered the interrogation room. Zeeshan got up, startled.
“Leave the room,” she told him.
“But ma’am …”
“Step outside the room, constable,” Meera said. “That’s an order.”
The suspect was sitting against the wall with his knees drawn up to his chest. She sat down cross-legged in front of him.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Don’t be scared, I won’t hurt you.”
“Clothes,” he croaked.
“I don’t have your clothes,” she said, “but don’t worry about it. I am a wrestler, I grew up watching men in langots, it means nothing to me. Here, I got you water.” She handed him a bottle.
She let him drink the water, watching him.
“You really don’t know where Rajesh is?”
He shivered violently and began to cry. “No, no, no.”
“I believe you, don’t cry, I believe you.”
Meera hated it when people cried.
When he stopped, she asked, “Tell me a little about Rajesh, what kind of person is he?”
“I thought he was a good person, but now I don’t know what to think. He was into animals a lot, he was always running off with a guy called Deepak – he is well known, into politics and stuff – to put medicine on injured animals. Used to waste a lot of time and money. It was an obsession with him.”
“How do you know him?”
“We used to work in a factory in Greater Noida, we lived there together as well.”
“The printing press?”
“Yes.”
“What about his girlfriend there?”
“What girlfriend?”
“There was a Muslim girl.”
“She was not his girlfriend. She used to work at the factory too, that’s all. He was friendly with her. Some nights, she was scared to go home alone in a bus or auto after her shift, so he would borrow someone’s bike to drop her home. People didn’t like that.”
“What’s her name? Where can we find her?”
“Her name … her name is Rubina. She used to live in the slum next to Regency Towers. Sector 87, not far from Pari Chowk.”
“Could he have gone there? Any other family or friends he went to visit?”
Mona thought for a moment.
“No, I don’t think so. She lives with her family.”
“What else can you tell me about Rajesh?”
“He has a metal rod in one leg.”
“Really? What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, you asked me if I know anything more. He has a metal rod or plate in his right leg, over here.” He pointed at his shin. “He broke it once, but you can’t tell by looking at him because he doesn’t limp. Please get me out of here. Those men will kill me.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll live.”
Excerpted with permission from The Beast Within, Rudraneil Sengupta, Context/Westland.
