Be careful what you wish for ...

 

Every Police officer, in a career spanning over three decades, gets exposed to a large variety of crimes and criminals. In my entire career, the most diabolical crime I came across was not the Purulia arms drop case. It occurred when I wasn’t in direct Policing either. The investigation didn’t even involve me, except very peripherally.

In 2015, I was heading the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), the regulator mandated to ensure against and counter any unlawful interference when you fly – hijacking, bombing, armed attacks and so on involving aviation. On September 4 of that year, a Friday, I was visiting Kolkata on tour and a service colleague hosted a dinner for me and some other colleagues at Tolly Club. It was fairly late when the party wound up. Basking in the afterglow of the enjoyable evening replete with food, laughter and banter, I was about to doze off at the Guest House when I was jolted awake by the phone ringing after midnight – every Police officer’s regular nightmare. Bengaluru airport terminal manager had received a series of disturbing WhatsApp messages. Seeing the messages, the party feel-good and any thoughts of sleep just went out the window. Here is an assorted sample:

 

·       ‘Islamic State Wins. Air France to Paris and Haj Flight to Jeddah will be blasted on air.'

·       ‘Third target for today: Lufthansa to Germany.'

·       ‘IS wins, will spoil India. Stop if you can Allah.'

·       ‘Get ready to see the fireworks above the sky today.'

·       ‘Three bombs kept at Airport Cargo sector are ready to blast at 3 am, IS wins.'

·       ‘You can't trace any of our men, at least try to trace the bomb.'

·       ‘Not for today, it will be tomorrow at 3 am.'

 

This was followed by similar messages at Delhi airport. The messages and some phone calls to various call centres started at around 1 AM and continued till about 5 AM on Saturday morning. They mentioned that six different and specified international flights taking off from Bangaluru and Delhi airports would be blown up and there would also be an explosion in the cargo area of Bengaluru airport. The messages and calls were very pinpointed and gave many details of the concerned flights. Interestingly, all these six flights had either just taken off or were preparing to do so. They included flights of Air France, Jet Airways, Cathay Pacific, Lufthansa, Saudi Arabian Airlines and Swiss Air.

 

My entire night was spent in tracking, supervising and organizing sterilisation of the planes, passengers, cargo and catering. Three of the flights were already just airborne and were recalled back. The remaining three flights were isolated on the ground. The elaborate procedure of disembarkation of passengers, unloading of luggage, thorough checking and sterilization of aircrafts, passengers, cargo and catering, etc. began. At the best of times, the drill takes at least about four hours. With so many flights under bunched threats, it was an endless nightmare. Total loss to aviation industry because of this was estimated at above Rs. 8 cr., and this was not counting the loss of the time value of the (mostly high-value) passengers because of the cascading delays caused by the disruption.

 

The Commissioner of Police, Bengaluru was an IPS batchmate and a good friend. I called him and requested him for registering the case under the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against Safety of Civil Aviation Act (SUASCA) and for focused investigation so that BCAS could later pick up the investigation after the necessary notification. This particular Act is very stringent carrying a penalty of life-imprisonment and BCAS had achieved a good conviction rate under the Act in other cases. While the incident and countering it constituted my bread-and-butter in that particular assignment, for a city Commissioner of Police with myriad demands on his time and energy, I wasn’t sure how much priority the case would get. I’m afraid I nagged him quite a bit. Two days later, he informed me that the case had been cracked. He also told me that it was not a simple case of bomb threats but the threat calls were actually a by-product, a small link in an elaborate crime of extraordinarily gruesome proportions. It involved a grisly murder as well.

 

I flew out to Bengaluru post-haste and examined the arrested accused person at length. What I learnt stunned me.

 

After registration of the case, Bengaluru Police traced the telephone no. from which the messages and calls had originated to one software techie named Saju Jose and its location at residences in upmarket Fernhill Gardens in HSR layout, Sector VI, Bengaluru. However, Saju was not even in the city at the time the messages were sent. Police called his wife, Latha (name changed) for examination and she had no clue as to the messages or even the phone no.. However, tracking the location of the phone, the Police found that the movement of the phone was tallying with her two visits to the Police station but did not tally with any other movement of hers. After this, they closely examined a person named Gokul M G (37) who had accompanied her to the Police station on both the occasions as her husband was not around. Even though Gokul claimed complete ignorance, after sustained interrogation and a check on the wi-fi connection he had used to send the WhatsApp messages, a five-year diabolical plot involving complicated romance, spectacular intrigue, a brutal murder and the final denouement of six international flights being subjected to serious disruption came to light with Gokul as the criminal extraordinaire.

 

Gokul and and Latha were classmates since Class 12 until completing their Engineering course in Thrissur, Kerala in 2007. They had been intimate then but after the graduation, Gokul moved to Delhi and Latha went to Thiruchirapalli, both for higher studies. In Delhi, Gokul met another girl, Anuradha, a Ranchi based girl, fell in love and married her in 2009. Both worked in the IT sector. In the same year, Gokul’s ex-flame, Latha also tied the knot with another techie, Saju Jose, in an arranged marriage.

 

Soon after marriage to Gokul, Anuradha left her techie job and took up a teaching job. Gokul confessed that he used to work from 9 AM to 11 PM and, probably frustrated, Anuradha started having an affair with a student of hers. Gokul found this out when he chanced upon some lewd messages exchanged between the student and Anuradha. In 2011, Gokul came across his old flame, Latha on Facebook and resumed contact.

 

His wife Anuradha being devoted to Shirdi Sai Baba, Gokul created a fake email id of a ‘Baba.’ As ‘Baba,’ he started sending emails to Anuradha, gained her confidence and slowly got her to confess to her affair with her student. He must have been enormously convincing. In his guise as “Baba,” Gokul advised Anuradha to discontinue her extramarital affair. She did, but again after three months, she resumed her relationship. Obviously, she kept the ‘Baba’ informed about the twists and turns of her dalliances and emotions every step of the way.

 

Now Gokul was furious. He decided to get away from his wife and get his old flame Latha back in his life. These are not simple things. Or easy. The wife doesn’t just disappear. There is the whole matter of child custody – they had a two year old daughter whom Gokul did not want to part with. The father-in-law was an ex-Deputy Superintendent of Police. There was the small inconvenience of Latha not willing to get back with him and her husband not agreeing to a divorce either. However, in Gokul’s mind, these were minor errors in taste and everything can and would fall into place. Given time. He set about meticulously eliminating all the obstacles in the way, getting rid of his wife, avoiding a murder rap, squaring things with his in-laws, winning back Latha, the problem of Latha’s husband and so on. In his convoluted but systematic mind, these were just steps to be solved in an interesting puzzle and he seemed to foresee zero problems in getting to the end-point. It would not happen immediately. It would take time, enormous time – five years in this case – but, as they say, the vulture is a patient bird …

[To be concluded]