The Untamed | V. Jyothiraditya

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Every story has a beginning and an end. The beginning is something that many people don’t care about and the ending is what everyone eagerly waits for. But the point is: knowing the beginning leads us to the end much quicker. This is my hunt for an unknown beginning; an unknown beginning that would lead me to the conclusion; a conclusion that is wanted by many, a conclusion that would mark the end of a dreadful human monster. Let me start with the time when the issue came into the limelight. It was by a video; a video which scared everyone’s socks off, a video which was one of its kind.

It was exactly two weeks ago; Since then, we had to witness four videos of that kind. The first video was circulated on the 27^th of January, Sunday. I was going through the FIR of theft case and a notification popped on my mobile screen. As I tapped, the video started to play:
‘Action: A man was tied up to a chair, blood was flowing out of him, he was screaming out for help, his hands were hammered to the chair with screws, all his nails were crushed and there were two other masked men alongside him in the frame; while one of them was cherishing the pain of the guy, the other man started to talk. His voice was deep, was a strong base voice, and had a peculiar tone. What he spoke: “I am a normal human; We both are normal humans. We, the people termed as psychopaths are even humans. We are just those humans who are oppressed by our families; who are forced for someone else’s pleasures; who are made to believe that we can live only if we kill. This marks the beginning of the most dreadful days in the history of humanity.

We felt the pleasure while piercing the knife through his nerves; We realized what joy is while listening to his voice in pain and helplessness; We cherish the moments while the blood is flowing out and the tears roll down; another high pitch of voice and we will squish out the glands; We tasted the best recipe while drinking his blood and that’s when we discovered the reason for our lives while torturing him; We acquainted that neither money nor women would give us the felicity we experience while chopping people’s bodies into pieces. People are meant to be suffered and we are meant to enjoy their suffering.

We are one amongst you, but I am no You. We will prey on you and ravish your body parts till you beg me to separate the soul from your body. We will make you encounter your death. We mark the end of humanity, that begins 

the rise of us, THE UNTAMED.” As soon as he told this, the other masked guy pulled a hammer out and smashed it into the head of the victim. The blood got brimmed on the screen.’

No sooner did the video end, I got a call from DSP Karthikeya. “Bhagat please report to me at the office within half an hour. It’s an emergency.” While I was going to DSP’s office, I kept watching the video in search of clues.

“Have you seen the video?”, questioned DSP. Ramchandra.

“Yes sir.”

“This video shouldn’t go viral. This will make people get scared and do you have any leads? We should catch these killers in no time.”

“No major breakthrough sir. I need the help of Forensic. But I assure you that we will catch them ASAP.”  DSP has sent Mr. Varun from the forensic department for helping us. Mr. Varun has keenly observed the video and put forward a few points: “The person who is talking in the video, his age might be around 37-40 years and he might around 6 feet tall. Coming to the second culprit, he might be around 5’4. The victim is around 5’6 and I feel his age might be around 27-30 years. He has a tag around his neck. I think he was taken away while returning from office. This is all that I could find from this video.” Three days passed and nothing new was found. While I was pissed off due to the pressure from superiors and a notification brought me back into my senses. It was the second video. This time the victim is a lady. And I was called by the DSP and shunted again. With my frustration level at peak, I played both videos simultaneously to find anything common in both videos. On close observation, just behind the victim in the second video, there was a company logo. “It’s the logo of Gowda Factories.”

“But sir? Sir Gowda Factories have shut down six months ago due to their failure to pay back their debts.” I was back into the state of being confused.

“That’s it. They are taking people and torturing them to death in those factories which are closed or are not in use. You need not go to all closed factories either. Our main target is those factories that belong to owners who are not in India or own an MNC cause these factories have no kind of security and are located in the outskirts of the city, it could be easier to access them compared to all other factories.” All my men started searching factories and we were able to find the first victim’s body within four hours.

Place: VK Industries Old Factory.

As we walked in, the smell of decomposed bodies started to churn our stomachs and made it very difficult to breathe. Many couldn’t even look at the dead body; his face was half crushed, eyes pooped out, with nails hammered all into his limbs and floor completely covered with blood. The same night, we even found the body of the second victim. As we rushed the body to the forensic office, we noticed the media standing out, waiting with a bunch of questions to ask. As I stepped out of my jeep, all the cameras turned towards me with the mics just below my chin.
“Sir how did you find the bodies?” “Whom do you suspect to be behind these atrocities?” “What is your plan of action and how much more time do you need to catch the culprits?”
“We have found both the bodies and this will make our investigation much easier. We will be catching those two bustards very soon.” Mr. Varun has already started examining the bodies. “Both the bodies are unidentified. But we can rebuild the face artificially to find the complete face. That procedure would help us find who these people are.” “How much time do you need to do that Doc.?” “Maybe 24 hours.” “Thank you, Doc.” “Pratap. Recruit an electrician right away and take him to all the places where factories are situated and set CCTV cameras with night vision and even assign guards near each camera. We should trace them down in 2 days.”

The next day, Pratap was on the assigned duty and I was waiting for Mr. Varun’s report. Waiting for the report, I fell asleep. Continuous notification sounds of my phone have disturbed my sleep. I woke up to check my phone and a constable knocked at my door. “Come in” “Sir. This file was given by Doctor sir.” He handed over the file and left. The file not just had the built faces but even had their details taken from the database. The first victim was Arjun, was a software employee and the second victim was Sridevi, who was a journalist.  Psychos usually target a similar group of people but these two are in no way connected. My phone started to buzz while I was trying to find who are the targets. When I saw the phone, I had n number of messages from a contact. It was a private number, as I tapped audio started to play: “Hi Mr. Bhagat. I hope you recognized the voice. It’s me, your cupidity. This is a small favor to make your job easier. Address: Suchitra Warehouses. Go and collect your gift. Take care, my friend. Catch us if you can.” I and my team hurried to Suchitra Warehouses but the damage was already done. Just I saw the body, he directly sent me the video, and this time in the end he revealed who the victim was. Her name is Nandini and she was a college student. I have sent a team to get complete details of all the three victims, I felt that there is some kind of link between all the victims. While a team was examining the crime scene, I kept myself occupied with the video. Mistakes aren’t made; they just happen- the tall guy forgot to have his glove on while hammering nails and his mistake gave us the biggest breakthrough. Fingerprints were found. All the teams assembled at my station by 7’O clock in the night.

“Sir this is the file containing complete details about all the three victims: from birth, schooling, family, medical records so on.”

“Let me go through this, I think there will for sure be something that could help us.” I went through the files. All the three are of different age groups, different professions, different family backgrounds everything was different. “Finally. All three of them have suffered from some kind of psychological problem in the previous year. Arjun suffered from depression due to breaking up, Sridevi had Post Traumatic Stress disorder and Nandini had Anxiety & Panic attacks but the common thing is they were treated by the same doctor. Mr. R.P.Sharma. Bring him to the custody at the earliest.”

“But sir. It’s been a quarter of a year since R.P.Sharma passed away. He committed suicide at his residence.”

“Can you take me to his home?” We drove to Mr.R.P.Sharma’s house and met his family. There was nothing suspicious about his wife and he had two kids, both of them were very young.
“Mam I hope you already know about the psycho killers. All three victims who died till now had only one thing in common. All of them were treated by your husband. We feel your husband’s death even has some kind of connection to our case. Can you tell us the reason behind sir committing suicide?”

She had tears; “None of us even know why he died. We were very happy, he was a jolly person, I still don’t understand why he committed suicide.”

“Thank you, mam.”

From there we went to Sharma’s office.
“Good morning. I’m CI Bhagat. I’m here for an inquiry about a case. Can I see Mr. R.P.Sharma’s patients list?”
“Sure sir.”

We took a bundle of 47 pages with details of all the patients who were treated by Sharma in the last six months.
For the next three days, nothing moved an inch. Many were looking into the details of patients, videos, and audio I received for new clues, but nothing was found; all the clues we had weren’t of any help; in fact, the killers were even silent, they haven’t had their new prey. We then decided to start a drive, a fake drive where we visit houses of all the patients and their surrounding houses, we instruct them to install an app that would help us to track the locations of everyone which would help us in monitoring their safety until the culprits are caught. Going through the 47 pages bundle, I found all three victims’ psychotherapy wasn’t completed. I have called the clinic.
“Mam this CI Bhagat speaking. Mam ongoing through the patient’s records we found that a few of the cases which were handled by R.P.Sharma sir before his death were incomplete. Can you tell us to whom were these cases thereupon transferred?” “Sure sir. Let me check. Sir all those incomplete therapy cases are now being handled by Sharma sir’s colleagues- Mr. Ratna Kumar and Mr. Sailesh.” “Thank you, mam.”

 The psychos always hunted their target, while police were preoccupied with some other work. While we were on rounds to educate people about our drive, that’s when we found that they have already kidnapped their next target. It was Shyam Sunder, he was a writer. By the time we informed every guard about his missing, the video has already circulated. He was killed in the S.R. Industries factory. “Pratap get me the CCTV footage from there.” On examining the video, we found the car in which Shyam was taken. From the footage, it looks like the killer was quite familiar to Shyam. The killer was very smart, he managed to keep his face from being caught. The car’s number was TS 08 BD 2010. “Get me the details of the owner of this car.” After an hour, Pratap got the details of the owner and it belongs to Mr. R.P.Sharma. Seeing that I just felt my shooting myself because I had an immense amount of pressure being built in my head. We headed to his house- “Mam can we see Sharma sir’s car?”
“Sir it’s not here. I needed some money to pay fees. I have sold the car for that reason.” “Can you give us the details of the buyer?” The buyer was a goldsmith. His name was Pankaj Biswal.

“Namaste Pankaj Biswal ji. I’m CI Bhagat. Does this car belong to you?”

“Yes sir.” “We are here on duty. Can we look into your car?” He handed the car keys. The car was parked outside the apartment due to a lack of parking space. We found five sets of fingerprints on the steering. We cross-examined them with the fingerprints of Biswal’s family. Four of them matched and one was a mismatch. The mismatched one matched with the fingerprint which we collected from the nails. We had fixed an appointment to meet Mr. Ratna Kumar and Mr. Sailesh. Sharma, Kumar & Sailesh were not just colleagues but friends for a long time. I got to know this from the picture hung on the wall in Sharma’s house. So, I felt meeting them would be helpful to know more about the death of Mr. Sharma which in turn would help our case.
Knock-Knock “Come in”, said Mr. Ratna Kumar. As I walked in, seeing Mr. Ratna Kumar I had a bad vibe; a vibe which told me that Mr. Ratna Kumar is that speaker in the video i.e; one of those psychos. I wasn’t sure but as soon as I heard him speak, I was very much sure that its Mr. Ratna Kumar. But I can’t take him into custody with my hunch. I need proves. I managed to have a good conversation with them and just before I left-

“Mr.Ratna I feel much stressed since day one of this case. Can you prescribe me some medicine?”

“Sertraline”, said Mr.Ratna.

“I have a very bad memory. Can you write me a prescription?” “Sure” I took the prescription and that prescription gave me the fingerprints I wanted.

“Bhagat, all the three samples matched. It’s Mr.Ratna Kumar who is behind this. You can go and take him into custody.”

“I wish I could sir.” “Why can’t you?” “If I arrest Mr.Ratna Kumar, the second guy will escape. I feel that Mr. Sailesh is the second one in the video but as I have no proves against him, I can’t arrest him.” “You can arrest Ratna Kumar and take Sailesh into custody for an inquiry.” “Yes. I can but what if Sailesh is innocent? We do a law that states that even if 100 culprits escape, 1 innocent shouldn’t be punished or tortured.  Even if Ratna Kumar confessed that it’s Sailesh, we need some kind of strong evidence to take into custody.” “What are you going to do now? Do you have any plan?” asked Mr. Varun. “Yes, doc. I do have a plan.”
“Guys keep an eye on the remaining four patients.” “Sir Karthikeya’s tracker is moving towards the outskirts.” I grabbed my walkie-talkie- “Charlie Charlie. Guard 306. A red Swift TS 08 BD 2010 heading towards out-skirts of the city. Take your force and follow the car.”

“Sorry, Karthikeya these are the last words you gonna hear. In five minutes you are going to encounter your death.” While Karthikeya was screaming for help, the force just waited for the right time to go in.
“Sir he is tied.” “Hold.”

“Sir they put on their masks.” “Hold. Hold.”

“Sir they switched on the video.” “Hold.”

Just a moment before they hammered a nail into his hand- “On Your Mark. Take Mr. Ratna down and shoot the other guy in his legs.” Bullets came out of our guns and both the killers were taken down.

“Guys put me on speaker. Hi Ratna & Sailesh. Shh shh Sorry sorry. Hi, the UNTAMED. Day has arrived now you are going to be tamed. It’s better you confess it yourselves, else you will be shot and the video will be circulated.” Pratap punches Mr. Ratna and he starts to speak-

“I, Sailesh, and Sharma were very good friends. Being a soft-hearted man, Sharma used to get stressed out at night after all his therapy sessions were done. He stressed in search of reasons for people to suffer and why can’t people be free from suffering. In search of the reasons, he got mentally affected, and that lead him to kill himself. He was never cared for by his parents, all they wanted was to get cured and be stress-free. It’s not a suicide but his patients killed him. And that’s the reason we wanted to make his patients go through all the pain my friend has undergone. Hence, we used to torture them and then smash them to death. Our friend was a pure soul and these heartless humans killed him. Even at this point, we are happy to die because we killed most of those who were responsible for our friend’s death. To let them know why they are being killed, we used to bring them to the outskirts in Sharma’s car using the duplicate key which we had since those days when Sharma was alive. We made them plead for leaving them; we made them normal with our therapy, gave them hope in life, and then killed; We made them experience the pain; we made them beg us to kill them; we smashed them into pieces and enjoyed every freaking moment of their deaths. We have no regrets.”

All those guns which were pointed towards them started to fire and in seconds, bullets pierced into their bodies, and that marked the end of THE UNTAMED.

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