The 90s Cop

Criminal Case

Navin was seriously looking at his gun in front of him when the constable walked into his room.

The constable announced, "Sir, as you ordered, I got you a criminal case."

Navin was keen to listen to the word case for the first time in that station, and the word criminal added to the case made him ecstatic. The ecstasy has a reason to it. 

Like any of the eighties kids, Navin became a police officer after he saw his favourite hero breaking the backs of bad guys in the movies. But his dreams came crashing when he got posted in a small village with only petty cases. A girl lost her cycle, a guy lost his calculator, and a farmer lost his bullocks. It was not that there were no criminal cases. They never came to the police station, but solved by the village elders. 

Navin quickly asked the complainant, "What is the case?"

"It is my father-in-law."

Navin thought for himself. Father-in-law? What criminal case against the father-in-law? It must be something related to a property dispute which turned into violence. 

He asked, "What is that with your father-in-law?"

"He lied about what he gave me."

Hearing that, Navin confirmed it was a property dispute after all.

"What lie?"

"He said he is giving the most valuable thing to me."

"But..?"

"He gave me his daughter, who tortures me every day", said the man and started crying.

Navin was disappointed once again. 

With full of anger, "Stupid person, go home. You should be ashamed to come for this to the police station. Get lost."

The guy started begging Navin, "Please, sir. The village elders also ignored all my requests. You are my only last option."

Navin left the man and constable and went into a separate room. With more time there, Navin could have got violent.

A few moments later, he went back to the constable and asked, "How is this a criminal case?"

Before the constable could answer, the man took off his shirt to show the marks of blows on his back. "All these are marks from kitchen utensils I bought for my marriage", said the husband.

"He showed me the marks, and I thought it was a criminal case", added the constable.

Navin went to the adjoint room and started to hit his head on the steel wardrobe in dejection.

The lemon case

After begging with higher officials for a long time, Navin got a transfer to a forest area, Satyamangalam. 

As he entered the police station on the first day, he saw it was full of people. He felt finally at home seeing all the mob in the station. 

After a few days of getting familiar, he got his first case. It was a criminal case. Not to show too much excitement, he hid his smile and walked to meet the complainants. The group were all six feet plus with heavy muscles protruding from their shirts. Navin's excitement had no limits.

"Tell me, what is the issue?" asked Navin in a bass voice.

"Lemons", said an old lady. Navin did not notice her between the group of tall guys until then.

"Lemons? I am talking to them", dismissingly said Navin and turned to one of the guys and nodded his head, asking him to answer.

 "Lemons, sir", hesitantly replied the man.

"What lemons?"

"We have a lemon garden. Every night some thieves were taking away the lemons from our garden."

Navin was confused. He picked up the file and read it. The case was about lemons. 

The group continued telling him various details. But Navin was lost in his disappointment. A few moments later, he realized the people were still there. Hesitantly he told them he was going to investigate and asked them to leave.

Navin was full of anger and disappointment when one in the group came back to talk to him.

"Sir, sir. I have something to tell you."

Navin nodded half-heartedly to mean "What?".

"Sir, you can catch the thieves if you patrol the 4 AM bus to Chennai", said the guy.

The advice made him furious. 

As if they lost diamonds and gold, they want him to be awake to catch some lemon thief at 4 AM. Navin thought for himself.

But he could not show his indifference. Instead, he nodded as if he understood and was back sipping his tea.

Slow as a tortoise

The anger-filled inspector walked in and started shouting at Navin.

"You have a small case, and you are working it slow as a tortoise", shrieked the inspector.

Navin ignored the lemon case till that day, thinking it was silly. However, he lied to his superior. 

"I have leads, sir, and I am following them up", he said.

"What lead do you have?"

Now he was in a spot of bother. But to his good fortune, he remembered the idea given by one of the victims. 

"I will be watching out for the 4 AM bus today. I am sure we will catch the thieves."

The officer had no clue whether Navin was right or wrong. He hardly cared for the case. However, the anger was because of one of his critical cases. On which he had no leads. But he gave orders to Navin.

"Okay, go today. I want to see what you find."

That night he reluctantly waited for the 4 AM bus. To his misfortune, it came an hour late, around 5 AM. He stopped the bus and searched it. Surprise, surprise, the lemons were in a bag on top of the bus.

=========

"Whose lemons are these?" Navin asked in an angry tone.

No response.

"I am going to count till three. Before I finish, you come forth. If you do not, then the consequences will be very ugly", announced Navin in an authoritative tone.

No one was coming forth. The all-night wait and the silly case made Navin restless. He was behaving indiscriminately.

Navin turned to the conductor and started smacking him. 

"How can you not know whose lemons are this? How irresponsible are you?"

A few more smacks and the conductor pointed to the man sleeping in the last but one seat. Navin's anger doubled seeing the thief sleeping in peace.

He smacked him till he woke up and continued hitting him till he got into the police jeep. 

As the jeep was heading to the station, he felt a sense of relief. Now he can show this victory and request better cases.

Next morning as soon as Navin saw the officer. He went to report to him his great catch.

"I caught the lemon thief", he announced proudly.

The officer hardly responded. 

The little hope he had, started to melt. 

Navin said loudly, "Caught the lemon thief." Trying to get his attention.

"Lemons? Go and catch pencil thieves in the school block", shouted the officer.

Dejected, he was sitting in his chair and thinking what his mistake was. How can the inspector be angry, when he caught the thief? 

Navin was in his thoughts when a constable walked in with a cup of tea into his room.

"Sir, there is nothing wrong with what you did", said the constable.

Navin ignored the words and turned to the thief in the room. He was trying to decide what to do next with him.

"Yes, sir. He is struggling with the case of star tortoise smuggling. He is showing all that to you."

Until then, Navin thought he made a mistake and kept quiet. Now the frustration turned to anger. 

"Yes, sir. He got all the best officers but has no progress to show. So, he is showing all the frustration on everyone else", reiterated the constable.

As per the chain of screaming, you scream at someone under you. Inspector shouted at Navin. Navin showed it to the thief. 

He walked to where the thief was kept and started smacking him.

"Tell me, how long have you been doing this."

"No, sir. I don't know anything about the star tortoises", said the thief.

Philosophy is for books

A day went by, and the inspector was back to his normalcy.

He came to Navin, and in a cordial tone, asked, "How did you catch the thief?"

"The clue we had worked, sir. He was taking the lemons in the 4 AM bus", proudly replied Navin.

"Why are these lemons so valuable? How much did the farmers lose?"

"As per the report, the thieves were hitting them for many months. The lemons are also premium now. Close to 2-3 lakhs, they lost."

"Two to three lakhs in lemons. Four to five lakhs in tortoises, these thieves have proper planning."

Navin was silent.

" If someone puts a hundred rupees in their pocket, no one will buy these thieves for fifty rupees. That useless they look. But their thinking and guts make him lakhs overnight."

"What is the use, sir? They cannot spend a rupee in peace. They hardly sleep without fear of getting caught", said Navin to cheer up his visibly dejected boss.

The inspector was happy with Navin's honest view of the world. He asked to proceed and present the thief in court. 

Navin took the thief and started to court in his jeep. He was lost in thought, suddenly there was a big noise, and the jeep stopped. It was nothing serious but a tyre puncture. The driver got down and started changing the spare.

Navin took the thief and went to the nearest tea shop. He ordered tea for both. 

Sipping tea, Navin asked the thief, "What will you get by doing these?"

"Money, sir. What else?"

"Is it worth it?"

"What in life is worth? An employee works all month and has a peaceful two weeks after seeing the salary. He starts looking for the next paycheque as the money runs out. My teacher worked hard all his life and educated hundreds. When he retired, he had no one to look after or any money. I thieve and then have a peaceful weeks/months. Don't forget I don't have to pay taxes too."

"But what kind of life is that."

"Material life."

"Whatever, now you are caught. You are going to be punished by courts."

"That is the risk with the job. I should have laid low after the first job. I got greedy and got caught."

"Not greedy, stupid."

"You can call me anything, sir. But don't ever call me stupid. Do you know how much work and planning goes into my work? I need to do days of research to find my target. I need to plan every step. I can't afford a single wrong step, and after getting things, I have to find the right buyer without showing my desperation. The merchants all look legal but are bigger thieves than me. If I am not careful, they will themselves send me to you and in bonus keep all my stock with themselves."

"What do you mean?"

"I create multiple accounts and small companies to deal with these guys. Aadhar verifications started to pose a lot of hurdles. Maintaining multiple accounts, moving money here and there, and not getting caught is not easy."

"Then?"

"I find Aadhar of dead people and use their mobiles. We can use them temporarily before their death certificate is issued. Can you imagine how much effort goes into it?"

Navin started feeling overwhelmed by all the information. That was when the driver came and said he changed the car tyre.

===

Back from the court, Navin walked into the inspector's office. There was a big commotion going on in his office. Inspector saw Navin and signalled him to sit and watch.

"Sir, none of the clues are of any use", said one of the officers.

"What do you mean?" asked the inspector.

"We found few fingerprints. But they don't match any in the police records."

"And?"

"These many tortoises mean someone should have bought food in loads to feed them. We sent people to markets which can supply this much. Found only one in our town."

"Then what?"

"He told me he sold to a guy who is a lemon farmer. But the lemon farmer died a few weeks ago."

Navin was listening to all of it. But he had nothing to add to the conversation. Navin started to recollect his earlier conversation with the thief. 

"Was he right? Are we not having any better life than a thief? It cannot be. Life is not just money and paycheques. It is more than that. Every moment of life cannot be of guilt. I should feel proud of my existence. I should be of some value. Maybe the world is materialistic. But one's existence should not be limited to that."

The conversation continued between the inspector and the officers in the inspector's room.

"These guys are using some new techniques. The money was sent and received in legal accounts. We cannot touch them."

"How can we say that?"

"There are too many accounts, and the money continues to move between them."

"Catch the people who hold these accounts", ordered the inspector.

"We tried. Some of these people seem to have died, and their kids say they never had any accounts before they died."

"What do you mean?"

"The accounts are opened after the people are dead using their Aadhar."

Navin's brain started to connect something. 

"How can that be?" asked the inspector.

"Yes, sir. These guys became too advanced in this game."

Navin started to recollect his interactions. 

"Sir, I did not steal any start tortoises" was the first thing that came to his mind. Navin never asked the guy about the tortoises. The aadhar of dead people is a giveaway. But the icing on the cake for Navin was the words from their conversation. "I should have laid low after the first job. I got greedy and got caught."

"Sir, I know who this man is", announced Navin.

====

As Navin was taking the thief to court, this time for tortoise smuggling, he said, "That is why philosophical talks should remain in fiction. Bring it to reality will spoil everything."

"What?" asked Navin.

"I got carried away with my philosophical conversation with you and spilt everything. I never thought you will think of me once I am put in jail."

"He proved his worth that way", said the inspector.

 

P.S. Navin called the farmers and thanked them for the case. He told them their lemons were a safe post that day. He also said he kept a permanent watch for the 4 AM bus to stop any further thieves. As they left the place happy, Navin was beaming with newfound meaning to his job. A constable came with the tea in hand and said, Lemons are auspicious, sir. Your career started with them you will have lots of success."