The Dangerous Trail

Shravan Malhotra looked at his reflection in the mirror and appreciated himself for still looking at the old "handsome Malhotra" as the pretty girls of his colleagues used to call him. He wanted to go overboard but at the last moment, he had decided to keep himself in check because after all it was a party at the DGP's(Director General of Police) place and he was a little apprehensive as to why all of a sudden he held the party and he an SP(Superintendent of Police) from one of the lesser-known districts of Karnataka had been invited on such short notice. The phone rang bringing Shravan out of his thoughts as he looked out to see his official pick-up had arrived. He took a last look at his getup a simple coffee-colored high neck pullover and faded blue jeans complete with a black jacket on top, he looked like SRK is what he thought, and smiling walked out of the quarters. The DGP's official bungalow had a well-maintained garden at the entrance and Shravan noticed that there were not too many guests. Most of them were unknown faces apart from a few senior officers. The female presence was very limited as officers were invited solo and not with family, so Shravan was a little disappointed. As he walked to the bar to order himself a drink, he noticed a pretty lady stirring her glass of vodka absent-mindedly. He noticed she had sharp features, milky white skin, and beautiful hair. She was dressed very formally wearing a blue chikankari kurta paired with blue-colored jeans. Shravan was unable to decide whether she is accompanying one of the officers here or she is a lady officer.

"Do I have the pleasure of providing company to the beautiful lady" Shravan finally asked earning him a glare? " I was not interested in the company but rather a little deliberation on my own but looks like it is not to be" she replied. As she turned to face him Shravan was for a moment disoriented looking at the perfect face adorned by the curls that fell in swathes across her back and lovingly adorned her face delicately like a frame. Her face was devoid of makeup but had a natural glow as her thin lips spread in a thin line to show her irritation. Shravan was lost in the lady's beauty when she flicked her fingers in front of him. He came back to his present state and quickly said "Can I get the beautiful lady a drink at least". To this the lady replied "Such a cheesy line to use on all ladies" and she started walking off when Shravan said "No this line is for you, I have other lines for other beautiful ladies" to which he thought she would not reply but in a second she turned and replied "good try but it's still cheesy". Shravan really wanted to look at her pretty face as he saw her getting lost in the crowd and he ran his fingers through his silky hair promising to search her out. Soon he was discreetly called inside by his boss to one of the inner rooms of the house. There were quite a few officers there and this is the first time he noted that he had his batchmate, Aneesh Rai, joining in the room. Shravan was quite happy to see him there, at least a known face in a so-so secret mission. The man addressing the small group of 16 people was the NCB(Narcotics Control Bureau) director, Mr. Akash Nayak and he was accompanied by Mr.V Subramanian(Zonal Director, NCB Chennai).

Narco-Terrorism is not something new to the world of crime. Narcotics and terrorism have for years have been having a strong connection as their need for each other has brought these two unlikely allies together. The illegal drug trade needs security and people to protect their trade while terrorism needs money to fund their illegal activities. Owing to India's geographic location you all must be aware that it has emerged as one of the high activity transit routes. India falls in Golden Crescent and GolderTriangle and the recent activities have shown that the activities in Myanmar and Bangladesh have shifted closer to the Indian borders to take advantage of the proximity to the Indian transit routes. All our internal security issues have been fanned by this illegal drug money. Post Dawood era the concentration of the kingpins has been outside India with their intermediaries controlling the trade in India. Recently we had caught in the Karnataka and Andhra border a truckload of shoes. Based on a tip-off we had raided and a thorough search revealed nothing initially but a careful look at the shoes we found that the drugs were hidden in shoes, carefully tailor-made and concealed. We are pursuing the trial as the news has immediately caused the shoemaker and the related people to go on hiding. The question is these are normal raids conducted by NCB but why this secret meeting here for which you folks have been hand-picked by your state. Some clues have given us a hunch that one of the state ministers of Karnataka has been directly involved in this trade and is probably the new emerging kingpin of India. This is a hunch, but we have not got any evidence or link still. This network seems to have spread its tentacles quite deep inside the Indian subcontinent from Karachi till Dhaka, from Kabul till Jaffna. They operate in a very corporate style where individual regions manage their own trade while the routes, transit, pricing, and supply across countries and continents are managed by the kingpin. Apparently, they have started funding the insurgent groups in India, and the recent attacks in Gadchiroli were funded by this group. At present we have a hunch that they might plan to overthrow the government so we need to be very careful. This is a very large and confidential operation, so we do not have a lot of people involved but we have selected the best people identified by your state and each one of you will be part of a team of two who will be provided with very specific targets and you are supposed to follow the trail and gather intelligence. Remember this is a covert operation and you will directly report to DGP and NCB heads with updates.

The NCB directors finished their briefing and then mentioned that NCB officers will assist them with all the detailed information and manpower. For now, the team will be assisted by 3 NCB IOs(Intelligence Officer)Shashank Trivedi, Saheb Awasthi, and Suman Tiwari. Shravan looked up at the name announced and turned around to find the lady he had tried to flirt with earlier was none other than IO Suman Tiwari. With her hair tied up in a bun with the strands neatly pinned on the back of the head with hairpins, she looked all made for the role she is to play. Shravan realized that he was ogling at her and immediately closed his mouth as Suman gave him a sideways glance and walked ahead to take the team through all the information that they needed to start off.

Chap-2 Perceptions

Although the NCB is the body which primarily deals with drugs and Narcotics, they work closely with state and central police as well international agencies to co-ordinate such operations. Since this operation (codenamed "Operation Sangam"), a very confidential one and the coverage was large it was important for the team irrespective of the department they belonged to, they needed to pick up the basic SOPs(Standard Operating Procedures) of drug trafficking and their tracking and cracking procedures. The team members from the IPS(Indian Police Service) and IRS(Indian Revenue Service) were asked to go ahead and plan to start the next day at a specific and confidential location in Bangalore where they will have to undergo some training. Shravan was not very happy with the situation. He was a decorated SP and good at his job and neither was he averse to learning but he had a chip on his shoulder about beautiful women in the team. He knew the fallout of such scenarios where people are enamored by their beauty including seniors and then for them it's a walk in the park while the men in the team had to slog it out. He had seen a similar scenario some time back in his career and did not want to go into this again. He decided to talk to his boss and excuse himself for the project. He looked at Suman, she was beautiful, smart but he was fine with harmless flirting with her but not ready to work with her. He could already see that the men were awed by her and the other two IOs hardly got footage. As Shravan looked over his resolve to move out of this new mission became stronger, he was not ready to sacrifice his hard work for a pretty looking face to walk away with the accolades. The only thing stopping Shravan from getting off this project today was because his boss was not in the city. He was away for a wedding and Shravan did not want to have this discussion over phone but talk to him directly. He needed to cook up a convincing reason as he could not give out the real reason else, he will be subjected to disciplinary action. For now, Shravan decided to carry on with all the activities that he had to undergo as planned in the schedule after all who does not like the company a beautiful lady and an old buddy.

The team was ready with the basic trainings and now they were headed to Chennai Zonal headquarters for further discussions, field experience and some more training. The train was at 6am in the morning and the team had gathered at the Bangalore Central Station to board. It was almost 6am and time for the train to depart but there was no sign of Suman. Aneesh and Shravan were having a long chat after long as cups of freshly brewed coffee flowed. They were catching up on good old days of their training at the Police Academy when the train started to move. They both had to leave their coffee cups and run to the train fast and then then saw the other folks who were looking behind them. When they asked they came to know that Suman has still not reached and they were worried. Shravan just peered out from the door they came in and saw Suman running along with a small backpack trying to get on the train. Shravan waived his hand which he saw Suman noticed and then he stretched out his hand to help Suman get on the train. A minute later he noticed nobody took his hand and neither could he see Suman running. He was now sure that Suman had missed the train but never mind he was anyways getting off this mess and he could enjoy this short journey. As he walked back to his seat, he heard Suman's voice in the back and Shravan turned around to see Aneesh walking her to their compartment. So finally the lady reached and then he asked Suman "Oh!! You got into the train". Suman smiled and said "Yes, thankfully I did not follow your stupid movie stunt and used my brains to get into the first compartment that was there. I had called Aneesh to inform that I was on my way and will make it and for you guys to carry on. But where do you get these ideas".

Shravan : I just thought sometimes you can let yourself go and just be like normal young girls , why do you have to uptight always as if you are the only one catching the fugitives and we all are fooling around

Suman: Thank you for letting me know that I am boring and uninteresting, but I take that as a compliment as I don't understand how people like you make it to places like police where you should be better off serenading pretty girls around trees

Shravan: Thank you for saying that I am good looking Casanova but I have made here on my merit and not by just using my pretty looks and body to get through things.

As soon as the words left Shravan's mouth, he knew it was gross and wrong to perceive every woman the same way but this lady seems to bring out the worst in him. He looked at her and he saw she looked ashen and if he was correct, he did notice a sheen of tears which was quickly controlled as she turned and walked away. Shravan was thankful that there was nobody around and even Aneesh had walked ahead.