STORYMIRROR

Baiju Menon

Drama Tragedy Crime

4  

Baiju Menon

Drama Tragedy Crime

Breaking News

Breaking News

6 mins
25

Veena opens the news reading in the studio with, "Welcome to the news hour." She paused briefly before continuing, "The main news at this hour... The investigation agency who is looking into the mysterious disappearance of well-known business tycoon Mr. Ashok Kumar is clueless and his wife Mrs. Veena Ashok has been asked to appear before the investigative team today."

"Vishnu, is this the same lady you will be questioning today?" wondered Ashwani, Vishnu's wife. "Yes Aishu, but there hasn't been a breakthrough in the investigation yet”, Vishnu said.

Veena's friends and coworkers comforted her when she came out of the newsroom. For Veena, reading such a news story about her husband Ashok was so embarrassing and humiliating!

Veena arrived at the Police Headquarters on time for the scheduled appointment. She has been instructed to wait by the investigation team, which consists of Vishnu and Manav. Despite their professional links, Vishnu and Manav are childhood friends and related to one another as Vishnu is married to Manav's sister Ashwani. They are very sincere officers and more importantly, do not give in to political or other outside pressures when it comes to joint case investigations.

As soon as both Vishnu and Manav reached the station, Veena got up and greeted them, "Good morning, Sir". Manav asked Veena to have a seat, "Very good morning Veena! so tell me, when was the last time you saw Mr. Ashok?". Veena began to speak, but abruptly stopped. The interrogation continued for almost an hour. “Veena, please come to the station whenever we call for… you may go now”, Vishnu said.

Veena started thinking about her marriage as she was driving home, the mistreatment Ashok endured beginning with their marriage. He treats her worse than a maid. She was under intense pressure from her father, Narender, to marry Ashok, a successful businessman and longtime friend of Narender. Alcohol and drug abuse are Ashok's only vices. Every time he returns from a night out high and stoned, he beats her. Narender is not at all bothered by the suffering of his daughter as long as Ashok is supporting him financially.

As Vishnu was getting ready for station, his daughter Dyuti said, “Papa, I’m getting late to school…can you just drop me off close to the school”, Vishnu replied, “All right sweetie… ask your Mummy also to hurry up”. On the way, Vishnu was baffled when he spotted Manav and Veena together walking on a road side. He immediately slowed down the car. “Aishu, what is going on between the two”? remarked Vishnu. “do they know each other before”, asked Vishnu. “he never mentioned anything about her to me”!, said Ashwani. “Neither me…. not even during the investigation”, replied Vishnu. “But one thing I noticed… he used to take a special interest on this lady every time she appears on TV during the news hour”, Ashwani recalled, “Who knows, maybe they might be discussing something about this investigation in private to get some lead”, remarked Ashwani. “Could be”, said Vishnu and he accelerated the car.

The next day, Veena shows up promptly at the police headquarters. This time, Vishnu urges Manav to confront Veena in order to see Manav's reaction to her answers. Manav senses something amiss and tries to hide his embarrassment as he begins questioning of Veena. Suddently, Vishnu receives a call from a fellow policeman informing him that Ashok's body has been found floating in a river. He tells Manav and Veena about it. Veena starts to experience fear. She stares hopelessly at Manav.

Due to the continuing investigation, Veena is replaced by a different woman who begins reading the day’s breaking news - "today’s main headlines… the decomposed body of renowned businessman Mr. Ashok was discovered in a river about 8 km from his house’. She stopped briefly before picking up the story again and read, "His wife, Ms. Veena Ashok, has been taken into custody and sources claim that she has confessed to the crime."

Early in the morning when Ashwani picked up the newspaper, she was horrified to see the headline, "Top investigating cop involved in business man's murder"! She was about to pass out because she could not believe what she was seeing! Vishnu was dozing in the bed when she finally managed to go to him. She showed him the newspaper and roused him from his sleep. ‘Is this true’? asked Ashwani. ‘Yes Aishu, Vishnu replied. “Manav was continuing the relationship with Veena even after her marriage”!, Vishnu started to explain.

“…they had an affair and wanted to get married. Once Manav received a tip-off and he unearthed a drug trade involving Narender… he was unaware that it was Veena's father. After this incident, Narender was concerned about her daughter's connection with Manav and its effect on his business, so he insisted on marrying her to one of his close business acquaintances, Ashok. Finally, both of them had no choice but to give in to Narender's stubbornness and Veena married Ashok. On that fateful night, on his return, Ashok attempted to attack Veena but owing to heavy drinking, he lost his equilibrium and fell over the side of the stairway. She mistook him for dead for a time and immediately dialed Manav's number for help. On reaching her home, Manav finds Ashok's body in a pool of blood. He makes an attempt to contact me as part of his duties, but then changed his mind. He didn’t want Veena to be taken into custody. So they both decided to dispose the body and persuades Veena to file a missing person report for Ashok at the police station for the time being and then he and Veena carried Ashok's body in his vehicle dickey.”

Fate played a terrible prank once more. Vishnu and Manav are both part of the team investigating into Ashok's ‘mysterious’ disappearance.

Outside the police station, locals and few media people gathered. Ashok's family and friends including Narender accused Vishnu for concealing crucial information in order to save his colleague, Manav.

Vishnu summons one of the female constables and asked her to take Veena to Court. Veena began to cry uncontrollably and helplessly stared at Manav. Before Vishnu announces everything in front of the media, Manav stops him “I killed Ashok”!. Vishnu was taken aback for a moment. "Don't try and protect her… I know you still love her," a visibly angry Vishnu told Manav, "I’m not trying to shield her… you have to believe what I’m going to tell you now”, Vishnu continued, “It's true that we attempted to dump his body near a river as we thought he was dead…. but, in reality he was still alive… the moment I opened my car dickey, he pushed me and caught hold of Veena's neck… I warned him to release her… but he didn’t listen… I had no other option but shoot him to kill," Manav added after a brief pause. “here is the weapon… accept it and place me under arrest… she is innocent”.

Vishnu was completely stunned and unable to speak! He took a seat in the room's nook. News started flashing on the TV mounted on the wall in the room and elsewhere! Breaking news for the media and public but for Vishnu it was indeed a heartbreaking news!


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