The Dark Chains

A Murder Mystery – The Dark Chains

“Good Morning.” I heard a sweet voice, as I came out of the lift.

“Morning, Dhara madam…” a pleasant smile robotically stretched out itself on my face as I responded. Dhara was the marketing manager at the place where I worked as the Chartered Accountant. She had all the adequate dexterity for becoming a good marketing professional, good looks, nice curly hair, jovial voice, bubbly personality, bla..bla…bla…

I greeted almost half a dozen people, as I reached my desk. I was working in the AV Construction – A high-flying Construction Company in the city of Ahmedabad as HOD- Finance and Accounts for one of its Projects since last six months.

Just one look at my desk made my morning ordinary from being good, about ten to twelve files were pending for my confirmation as the accounts department HOD, seven to ten bungalow construction payments were also sitting somewhere along with those strewn files for my approval, last evening when I left had about ten unread mails plus few more that were added later were also in quest of my attention and a few evidences were available of the Grilled Cheese Vegetable Sandwiches we had last evening.

“It’s another of routine day at the office.” I thought unaware of the things coming my way later in the day.

“Bhawani Singh, my desk isn’t cleaned yet.” I bawled for some help. In a jiffy my desk looked like a different one, files were neatly arranged, payment approvals went into the drawer and the desk looked cleaned, eureka.

“Thanks Bhawani Singh, A cup of tea will do wonders.”  He smiled at me; he knew about my committed (complicated) relationship status with the cup of tea.

With the sip of tea, I switched on my desktop and started browsing through my mails, there were some important ones. All of sudden I was in high spirits to win 20 billion US $ and I was so triumphant reading it, I deleted the mail without any delay.

“Sanjay Shah-Calling” – Phone Manager popped on my desktop screen as I was sipping through my tea. Mr. Sanjay Shah is one of the Three Managing Directors of the AV Construction and my reporting head too. He was the one who looked after the accounts & finance section of the company; it’s of no significance that he didn’t even knew ABC of either Accounts or Finance being a Civil Engineer.

“Morning sir…” I grudgingly received the call.

“Please come in the Cabin, Advik!”  He simply said and disconnected the call.

I finished the tea in the single sip, put the cup at the desk and started for the Sanjay sir’s cabin.

“Come in sir?” I asked for his permission to enter, after knocking at the door of the cabin twice.

As I went in, I saw a nice bulk of bills on his desk for approval neatly arranged in the folder. Some files were nicely arranged in the cabinet behind alongside some books; even indexes of them have been left unread so far (at least I feel so). On the left side of the table was a vase, sitting with beautiful pink, yellow and violet colored flowers, I wasn’t able to guess either of their name or species, I have never been good at flowers and their various kind. As Sanjay sir was busy checking some stuff on his I-Pad, image of my desk at morning fleshed in front of me and I couldn’t help myself but to smile.

“So, Advik what is the fund status currently?” He threw the most difficult question at the first, I just gave a mysterious smile in the reply and he repeated his question, though non-verbally this time just using his eyes. Once again the reply was one and the same – mysterious smile.

“No more payments without Sanjay sir’s approval.” I ardently announced to the Accounts Dept. as I came out of the cabin. Everyone out there just gave me a cold look, a smile and back to the screens of their desktops. I also dropped my chin and switched on the working mode.

3:00 P.M.

All the pending files for approval were cleared, bungalow construction payments were delayed for the indefinite period, resting in the last drawer of my desk and all the important mails were dealt with. In short I had worked proficiently till the time since morning.

“Mr. Advik.” An unknown voice interrupted my work in his typical Rajasthani enunciation. As I looked up, I saw a short man about to be in his mid forties in white shirt and black trousers, smelling of some cheap cigarette, I was surprised at the fact that he didn’t had any hair-style at all, his hair were just stuck with his head in a slapdash fashion using some hair-oil (Parachute – I speculate).

“Yes.”  I replied abruptly.

“Hello.” He said handing over his visiting card, which went like. ‘Mr. Maansing Meena, Asst. Commissioner, Income Tax (Investigation wing)’. I just read this much and my eyes drove my attention to him with lots of vagueness in my mind.

“Yes, it’s exactly what are you thinking Mr. Advik. This premises is under income tax raid, please co-operate.” He said with the most bogus smile handing me the summons authorizing the Search & Seizure operations under section 132 of the Income Tax Act, 1961.

“Oh F**k…!” I said with a sigh.

Income Tax sleuths raid AV Construction – Managing Director detained for Fake Money of about One Crore found at his place.

Ahmedabad, 20th July.

The Construction giants of Ahmedabad – AV Construction were raided today by the Income Tax Department. Exactly when the hand of the clock showed three, Office of the Company at S.G.Highway, all the sites of the company and residences of all the three managing directors were raided simultaneously by the income tax officials. It was the bulls-eye shot by the department as they found unaccounted cash of rupees one and half crores at the residence of one of the three M.D. - Mr. Sanjay Shah, which was accepted to be the unaccounted income by him. The said cash was seized by the officials as the security for the future tax demand on completion of assessments. 

The more deplorable news came later in the evening, when department officials came up with the bolt from the blue that out of the money found at Mr. Shah’s place seventy to seventy five percent were found to be duplicate. Without more ado the complaint was lodged against him and he was detained by the police department. He is expected to be released by tomorrow on the conditional bail though. Mr. Shah’s legal representative told us that, He is the man of repute in the city and this is some kind of conspiracy against him. He discarded all the allegations, stating them to be unsubstantiated and said they will prove his innocence in the court of law. This is by no means a small issue and is not going to be silenced since a long.

 “Advik, take your head out of the newspaper it’s 8:30 already. Don’t you have to get ready for office?” Mom shrieked from the kitchen as the pressure cooker released some of its pressure with a whistle. I left the newspaper unfolded, totally scattered on the centre table, reached for the towel and hurried for the morning shower.

It was a very frenzied day at the office, it was two days since Sanjay sir was released on a conditional bail still it was the talk of the town or at least talk of our office. A Little ‘Abnormal’ amongst the ‘Normality’ always catches an eye, same was the case here. Everyone was busy guessing what the actual scenario could be and I was no exception. It was already 9:00 P.M, almost everyone had left the office. I was the only one working on the poignant 9^th Floor.

“Bhawani Singh, is Sanjay sir in the cabin?” I yelled to get the attention of Bhawani singh who was in his own world, with the ear-phones on.

“Ji Sirji.. ander hi hai..!!” He sounded like someone awoke him from the deep sleep.

I went in the cabin area of M.Ds, as I needed Sanjay sir’s authentication on some of the bills. As I was about to knock at his door, I heard him talking to someone on the call, so I decided to wait outside his cabin till he finishes the call. He was talking in relatively higher tone, so I was able to hear his part of the telephonic conversation going on.

“Look it wasn’t my mistake.”

………. …

“What can I do, if Income Tax people raided my premises the same day you sent the consignment?”

………. …

“I know it wasn’t a small amount, but still I will only say that I couldn’t have done anything different in any case. I was in the feeble of a situation. I am not goanna bear the whole of the losses.”

………. …

“Don’t even try to frighten me, if I will go down, quite a few people will be in problem including you and your god fathers out there. So don’t even dare talk to me like that. What do you think; I am some j**k-a*s of yours.”   The tone was getting louder and louder with each word he spoke.

………. …

“Do whatever you want to do; I am not afraid of your futile coercion.”

With that I heard the loud sound of Receiver banged with that of the phone. I thought it wasn’t the right time to talk with him, so I silently moved out from there, with one thing clear in my mind; Mr. Shah wasn’t innocent, definitely not.

All of us are very much anomalous creatures. Something happens, we gossip about it for a week or so, media creates some hype around and then with the time passing we start forgetting it (ignoring it – more precisely) as if nothing had happened at all, that’s what exactly happened with here as well. Within about fifteen odd days, everything got settled, we people got normal at the office, no more news channels had prime time stories on whatever happened and newspapers also stopped publishing the articles on it, like no one remembered what had happened fortnight ago. Beyond any doubt one can say that we live in the ‘Hypocrite Society’ and that is disgusting.

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