[Meghana – A Murder Mystery]
Meghana - A Murder Mystery
Meghana’s case was published in all newspapers and it was devastating to all her colleagues and friends.
Vijay entered the InfoMind BPO office campus ,where Meghana worked before she died. He waited in the reception to meet her colleague Rani.
BPO has become a hot destination for young graduate job seekers. It is not even necessary to hold a degree in order to do the BPO job. If a person has a good voice and problem solving skills then he / she can very well fit into that job. There are people who work in BPO while still studying their degree course.
The money they earn is more when compared to what their parents used to earn in those days. In fact it is more than their parents’ current salary. Most of them are from middle-class family,were luxury has been a mere word and a paradise that can never be experienced.
These jobs and salaries has brought so many changes in their life as they began to spend lavishly and so many other factors led to lot of changes in the society.
Vijay had stopped thinking, when he saw Rani was coming to meet him.
Rani introduced herself. She looked too modern with her attire.
“It was terrible to know about Meghana. I still can’t believe that she is no more”, she said with moist eyes. Her accent sounded American.
“Yes, I can understand. Could please tell me what happened that night?” Vijay asked politely.
“We usually spend our Friday night in pubs,and even on that day we had a very good time in the pub, and we left around 11:30PM.We didn’t have any food in the pub, so we decided to get parcel from Mastan center. She dropped me and went to her PG. In fact, she even called me when she reached the PG”, She said.
“where you under the influence of alcohol?”
“No sir, we both had only Pepsi”. We went to pub only for a dance”
“Ym… when did she call you?” Vijay asked.
“1:30AM”
Vijay asked Sunil to note down the time.
“Do you remember at what time she dropped you?”
“I think it was around 12:30 AM”
“Its surprising that you can remember the time very well”!!!
“I got a call from my boy friend when she was about to drop me, so I remembered it well”
“How much time it takes to reach from your home to Megan’s PG?”
“Usually it takes around 20mins.Since it was midnight,15 mins max its possible to reach her place..
“So, if she had started at 12:30AM then she would have reached her PG around 12:45AM, and by the time she entered into her room, it might have taken another 15 mins, that means 1:00AM. But she called her at 1:30AM.”, Vijay mumbled.
“Are you sure she had reached her room when she called you? May be she had bath first and then called you”, Vijay said.
“No, I heard the sound of the door opening when I was talking to her, so I guess she reached at that time”, she said.
“That means she reached at 1.30AM, so why the hell it took half an hour more time for her to reach?”, his mind voice asked that question to him.
Can you think of anybody who hates her or misbehaved with her in the past days?
Rani stalled after hearing that, her voice was quivering, “It might be that guy”
“Who?”
“Vikas, an engineering student”, her voice was shaking.
“Who is Vikas? What was his relationship with her?” Vijay asked Sunil to note down the Vikas details.
“Hmmmm… I told her to be careful with that guy… she didn’t listen… see what he had done …
Vikas,doing his final year engineering in PES Institute of Technology. He saw Meghana at the bus stop one time, since then he tried to molested her. She was unable to tolerate him. Out of frustration, she slapped him in front of his college friends. He felt insulted and yelled at her that he would kill her if she refuses to marry him. I think he did, he killed her. He is a rogue, please hang him”, she said in resentment.
“Do you suspect any other persons?”
“No… she was good with every-body else”, she said.
“Thank you very much Miss Rani. I appreciate for your cooperation”, Vijay shook her hand and left the campus.
“WoW… This is going to be a dead easy case… the murderer found”, Sunil shouted while driving the vehicle.
Vijay smiled and remained silent. Somehow his intuition was telling him that Vikas didn’t kill her as he knew this kind of road-side Romeos. They just threaten, but not courage enough to commit a crime. Even if they commit, they do with acid or with a knife because of rage, not silently as pre-planned murder.
“Where do you want me to go now, sir?” Sunil asked.
“PES Institute of Technology”, Vijay said.
*****
Smartly dressed in denim jeans and T-shirt with ray ban glass Vijay stepped off his Royal Enfield, along with Sunil into the PES Institute of Technology.
They didn’t want to scare the students off by going in uniform.
Seeing Vijay getting off his bike, girls smiled seeing Vijay’s attire and his crew cut hair style and physic.
“Who is the handsome guy”, asked a girl dressed in jeans to her friend and whispered themselves looking at Vijay, wondered who he might be.
Vijay went straight to the principal room to meet him and informed him that he had come to meet Vikas as he wanted to question him on Meghana’s case. Principal asked the peon to take them to Vikas class room.
The peon said,“Please follow me, sir”.
When they were turning around the corner, Vijay accidentally bumped into a girl and her books fell on the floor.
Vijay said, “Sorry, I didn’t notice”. She said, “It’s all right even I didn’t notice you coming”.
Her voice sounded musical to his ears. He wondered is it like this to him or for everyone who talks with her. He causally stole a glance to look the name on her books.“Abighnya”, he muttered.
He helped her to get the books and while giving it to her, he saw her face and stared at the vibrant glow that dominated the face and the way she had taken care to dress herself amidst jeans and skirts, impressed him.
He felt strange pleasure and calmness seeing her face, an unknown bond with invisible strings hold-ed his gaze and he totally forgot that he was in college and staring at her.
Impatiently Sunil gave a squeaking noise, “Shall we go sir”.
“Ya, we can go”, Vijay wondered what had happened to him.
Vikas was not in his class room and someone suggested to check in canteen.In the canteen they noticed him and he appeared drowsy. Except his sleepy gesture he looked handsome and casually dressed. Vijay told him why he had come to meet him.
“l loved her so much. She was my life and I was ready to even die for her. Though she insulted and despised me many times, still I loved her so much. But she left me”, Vikas was moaning.
Sunil never expected to see vikas mourn over the death of Meghana but rather assumed that he would be seeing a happy face.
Vijay keenly observed him and said, “She died becoz of poison in her food”, and noted his reactions. It was clearly evident that he didn’t expect this and he was shell shocked.
“Poison!!!!”.
“We are checking on her friends and others who know her. And we came to know that she insulted you in-front of your friends. So u got a motive to kill her for insulting you right Mr. Vikas?” , Vijay said.
“Are you nuts? Are you suspecting me…? I would rather die for her than kill her. In fact, I met her Friday night and pleaded her to marry me”. Vijay frowned hearing that, “What are you saying?”
“I followed Meghana from Pub on that day. I waited until Meghana dropped her friend at her home then I stopped her on the road. I pleaded her to marry me. I tried to convince that I would take good care of her after marriage”. We argued for some time and finally she said I was younger to her, so she wouldn’t consider my proposal and asked me to forget her.
I was unable to do anything. It’s so frustrating when the one you loved never realize your true feelings, but just ignores it because of some stupid reason that they think is so strong and valid.
I returned home with so much pain in heart and then… then … I came to know in newspaper that she was no more”, He burst into tears.
“How long did you argue with her?”
“Around 20 mins I think”, He said.
“Hmmm… that answers the question of why she reached home late that day”.He thought ,”who had access to put poison in her food?”
Sunil was disgusted to see a man cry and said “Sir, don’t believe him. My father always used to say, we should not believe the words of a sobbing man. We have to take him and give third degree treatment”.
Vijay stared at Sunil asked him to keep his thoughts to himself and wanted him to observe what’s happening.
“Vikas, I can understand your feelings. I will contact you if I need any more details or you can contact me if you would like to share anything with me, here is my contact number”, He gave his visiting card and left the canteen.
“Sir, we should not have left him simply like that”, Sunil grumbled.
Vijay didn’t say anything. Vijay slept late thinking about the case. He got a dream where he was studying engineering in PES Institute of technology, and his classmates were Abhignya, Meghana and Vikas. Meghana and Vikas were lovers. And he and Abhignya were also lovers…And before he could further enhance his dream world …..He got a call from Sunil early morning,
“Sir, I have good news, we arrested the murderer”, Sunil said vigorously.
“Who?” Vijay exclaimed.
“Vikas. He had come to police station and surrendered saying he indeed killed her”.
Vijay sprang up and sat upright, he couldn’t believe his ears hearing the name.“What are you blabbering? Is it really the college student Vikas that we spoke yesterday?”
“Yes, sir”
“Something is so wrong”, Vijay muttered.
“I’m coming immediately”, Vijay cut the call and got down from bed to get ready.
[image from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Your_temperature_is_dropping..jpg]