Aum, Amen, Amin

                       I was a small kid of 5 years when something very gruesome and ghastly took place infront of me at Koraput, where  my father was then posted as an Assistant Commandant in 3rd Battalion of Orissa Military Police, a specialised armed unit of Orissa Police. We lived in one of the staff quarters on the foothill of a flat topped hill popularly known as the ”Table Hill”. There was jungle everywhere, except a foot ball field size clearing infront of the staff quarters . It was a chilly winter morning of the early part of 1968 when I heard someone shouting outside our quarters. I ran outside and found that a spotted deer with her two offsprings were sorrounded by some hunting dogs and a group of  officers and sepoys who were armed to teeth in the clearing. The deer was perhaps pregnant and unable to run. After sometime I heard loud echoes of rifle fire and found that the deer was lying dead on the ground within seconds. Some men caught hold of the offsprings after a little chase.They cheered and greeted each other with their prize catch, while the hapless victim was lying still in a pool of blood. I was so terrified at the sight that I immediately covered my face with my mother’s saree. My father soon sensed everything and comforted me saying,  “son don’t be afraid, it is only a hunting spree the jawans are indulging in, which will be over very soon ”. I could not help but started sobbing. It was my mother who hugged me tightly for sometime and then I relaxed and stopped crying.
                       The second incident which occurred infront of me at Koraput left an indelible print in my mind. During the last part of 1968 my father got his transfer orders to another Battalion at Charbatia. My father had arranged a department jeep and a truck for our transport and shifting of our belongings as well. It was early morning when we decided to move. I was very much excited to travel such a long distance with the entire family. Some of my father’s colleagues and  suborinates had gathered near our quarters to bid farewel. Then suddenly something bizarre happened. I saw some jawans  were driving inside an abandoned house some 20 odd stray dogs. The house was located a little away from our quarters . The dogs were systemetically herded inside the courtyard of the house and the only entry/exit door was shut from outside. 2 jawans climbed up the courtyard wall with rifles in their hands. Then they started firing indiscriminately at the poor animals. I could hear muffled cries of the dogs with each shot fired. After sometime I could clearly see a stream of blood flowing out of the door and understood everything. When I and my elder brother shouted in protest against such a dastardly act by the jawans, the men who had gathered near our house explained to us that the dogs were rabid and hence harmful for the people around them.
                       After the baggage and other household goods were loaded a space of  6″x4″  near the cabin of the truck was left vacant. We children cuddled against each other in that little space to enjoy the journey, though my father wanted all to sit in the jeep. As soon as the truck started moving we cheered and chorused at the top of our voice. Slowly the unpleasant scenes disappeared from my mind and I felt a little spirited in the company of my brothers and sisters.
                      The episode of human cruelty to animals soon faded into my subconcious mind. But, the entire picture emerged clearly again after 42 years, when one fine morning  my wife fished out a trembling puppy from a gutter near our house at Bhubaneswar who was completely drenched in gutter water. We could not trace her mother. She looked like the skeletal remains of a puppy and breathing very slowly. Out of compassion we gave her some warm milk which she with much effort finished drinking. We cuddled her up in a blanket and soon she fell asleep contendedly. Every day we nursed her and soon she became healthy and strong.  Several times thereafter I had tried to drive her out from the house fearing that she might be infected with  rabies, but she would not budge an inch. My daughter pleaded me to keep her in our house. I finally resigned and agreed to her request. She is now 2 1/2 years old, all white and a charming beauty. Her name is Goldie. Now she waits for me every day till I return back to the house from work. She would wag her tail in happiness and then lie upward as if pleading me to stroke her with my hands. After getting a vigorous stroke she would go to sleep in my daughter’s bed-room. 

                          Please be merciful  to the  animals who are also beautiful creations  of God.

              It was the winter of 1989 that the small industrial town of Jharsuguda in   Sambalpur  district experienced a series of night burglaries involving property worth of lakhs of rupees. The worst affected area was the crowded market near Station Square, where some unknown culprits had ranshacked the shops and stolen away garments, jewelleries,electric appliances, electronic gadgets and many more articles worth lakhs of rupees. They had adopted the modus operandi of digging into the walls of the shops to effect their entry, which we in police terminology call “sendh cutting”.

              I was then posted at Jharsuguda police station as a Sub-Inspector (Executive) after completion of my basic training and probationary period. We saw that whenever police patrolling was intensified in the affected area, the criminals would very cunningly shift their area of operation to the outskirt of the town, where usually deployment of police personnel was sparingly done . There was a public uproar over the issue and people demanded immediate prevention of the crime and apprehension of the  perpetrators.  It gradually became clear to us that a group of professional burglars were involved.

              The Sub-Divisional Police Officer, Jharsuguda who was then a probationery IPS officer, convened a meeting of the officers of Jaharsuguda police station and its bordering police stations to discuss about the alleged crimes and strategy to contain it . After a threadbare discussion he selected me and one of my colleagues to investigate the crimes, for having intimate knowledge about the criminals of Jharsuguda.  We were instructed  to solve the crimes within a fortnight. We  requested the SDPO to spare us from other responsibilities at the station to concentrate wholeheartedly on the aforementioned task. In agreement he issued appropriate instructions to the officer-in-charge of the police station.

             We then visited the scenes of crime one by one  and discussed with the forensic experts who were requisitioned earlier to collect material clues pertaining to the crimes. Surprisingly enough, the culprits had left no material clues like chance prints, latent prints, strands of fibre or hair, traces of metals or burglar tools, or any other clues at the scenes of crime, which could lead us to a particular gang. In most of the cases they had dug into the walls of the shops from behind or from the roof by cutting the asbestos or removing pieces of tiles. So, we prepared a list of burglars who were sent up in the previous five years having similar modus operandi and made a systematic roundup of suspects. We made thorough interrogation of each of the suspects. But, we set all of them free, as no clue could be elicited.

              After a thorough verification of above category of suspects, we shifted our attention and zeroed down on a gang of trio who had reportedly gone underground for quite a long time. They were professional burglars of the infamous ” Raghu Rout Gang” comprising Raghu Rout, Manoj Singh and Estephan Tirkey.  While everybody in the station was speaking about the gang, but neither anybody had seen them, nor knew about their physical descriptions. We made a thorough study of their dossiers and ascertained that, they had not been verified by any police officer in the previous 2 years. So, first we located their house and launched a raid for their apprehension. As in the case of professional criminals all of them were found absent from their respective houses. The inmates/family members were examined, who stated that that the suspects had left their houses since 2 years and staying elsewhere. They posed themselves as innocent and denied knowledge about their present whereabouts.

              However, one good thing which happened after the raid was that, the regular reporting of burglaries came to an  abrupt halt and we got some respite from the intense public clamour.  It also became clear that the gang was hiding somewhere nearby in the town. We planted our source in all gambling and liquor dens which were functionng cladestinely in the town.

              Manoj Singh was the first to be caught from the house of his concubine, who was bootlegging in the nearby locality. He confessed his involvement in the aforesaid crimes and led to the apprehension of Raghu Rout and Estephan Tirkey. Their confession led to the discovery of a huge cache of stolen properties of every description and appreciations soon flowed in from different quarters for our immaculate work. After proper identification of the stolen properties and handing over to their rightful owners, the trio were forwarded to court. Their bail application was rejected by the honourable judicial magistrate who remanded them to jail custody.

               But, something kept on egging into my mind. I had an intuition that the culprits had concealed some serious matter from us. After a few days an information arrived from a source that certain railway employee named Mr. B.N.Rai, who was also a close close aid of the gang was found missing from his house under misterious circumstance prior to their apprehension. There were also rumour in the locality that the gang was responsible for his disappearance.

               So, we brought the trio from  jail to police station on police remand for their  interrogation. After sustained interrogation they broke down and confessed that they had committed murder of Mr. B.N.Rai for his treachery few days prior to their apprehension by police and buried his dead body near the abandoned marshalling yard of Jharsuguda railway station. They stated that B.N.Rai was assisting them in selling stolen properties, who they believed squandered away their loot to the tune of Rs. 50,000/-                 Basing on their confessional statement, we exhumed the skeletal remains of Mr. B.N.Rai from the marshalling yard in presence of a local magistrate and sent it for autopsy and examination by forensic experts. The trio were then remanded to jail for the cold blooded murder of Mr. B.N.Rai and causing disappearance of evidence by burying the dead body.

                 The mere thought of the ghastly murder of Mr. B.N.Rai and discovery of his decaying body gives me goosebumps even today.