The reporter continued with a dramatized sympathetic tone to praise Mitra, "There were so many societal issues she had tried to bring to the eyes of the authorities. The bad conditions of roads, the still not upgraded garbage disposal systems, the clogged-up drains, the water flooding on the roads every time it rained creating problems for pedestrians and the residents. She had used various channels like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook to highlight these issues. There were videos she had filmed of some of the struggles the nearby residents have been facing with the current system and uploaded onto the social networking sites to raise awareness."
Vishal looked on as the channel played some of the interviews Mitra had done with the people facing issues in her neighbourhood. He had always encouraged the enthusiasm she displayed to point out the flaws in the system, and had supported her social activism.
"She had tried her best to counter people who abused the system," the reporter continued.
The news report played two of the videos that featured verbal arguments between people. One was near a convenience store two streets away from Mitra's home where a part of the road had been dug out for laying some pipeline, but after the work was done, the road wasn't restored to a proper condition. The local residents had been facing a lot of difficulty in using that road.
The next time the government officials from Roads & Buildings Department appeared, the residents put up a fight with them, questioning their irresponsibility, demanding them to step up, and stopping them from further proceeding with the pipeline plan without restoring the roads they had previously destroyed.
The second video was taken on one of the main roads near Mitra's office where people on bikes were driving onto the pedestrian walkways to bypass the jammed traffic and go faster. They were honking the horns loudly at the pedestrians who were walking on the footpath, forcing them to step away from the pedestrian walk and almost running over them with their vehicles.
Mitra had stood in the middle of the footpath, her arms stretched wide and stopped the bikers, asking them to get their bikes off the pedestrian walk, questioning their intention of running over pedestrians, forcing them to get down. In a while, other pedestrians had also joined her to stop the vehicles and a verbal argument had broken between the bikers and pedestrians.
Mitra had posted the video to the Traffic Control Twitter handle and the City Police Twitter handle, asking them what they were doing when innocent people were getting hurt by the actios of impatient, irresponsible bikers.
Thoughts of realization tumbled down in succession in Vishal's mind.
Mitra had been into social activism in her own way for a long time, ever since Vishal had taken up journalism in college and worked on projects with Mitra's help on social issues. While Vishal had delved into investigative journalism and grabbed a highly paying job after winning multiple competitions, Mitra had subtly kept up with her habit of questioning the incorrect activities happening around her.
She had posted online multiple videos, pictures and statements pointing out the issues she deemed as needing a redressal. Though she had remained mostly invisible in the videos she filmed and just voiced out the happenings in a strong tone in the background, many of them featured the perpetrators of the wrongdoings in them.
And they all always looked angered and defensive for being publicly decried as irresponsible and improper. There were even perpetrators who had to an extent verbally abused Mitra and her other fellow agitators for raising the issues.
The words that Sashi had told Mitra rang clearly in Vishal's mind, "To let you know the consequences of your actions, the rights and wrongs you have done; your foolishness and overestimation of the morality of your own self and the people around you. The mask you wear and the real you behind that, I want to expose all that."
Mitra had been exposing a lot of commoners for their wrongs through her videos. Her kidnapper Sashi had used the same means to expose Mitra to public.
It triggered a massive unrest in Vishal's mind.
He rang up Sandeep and Raghavan, but neither of them picked up their phones. He waited for a moment to let it all sink into his mind and then rang up Sandeep again. Again, and again, till he took his call.
"Vishal, I am busy now..."
"We messed it up. The approach we took to the case was wrong!" Vishal cried into the phone.
"What do you mean? Which case are you talking about?" Sandeep was uninterested.
"What do you mean 'which case'?" Vishal was flabbergasted.
"There are two cases now that you are a part of, including the one you triggered yesterday. In case it is the second one, it is already late. We are having two political rallies today..."
Vishal scoffed, frustrated and baffled. "I don't care about the second one. I am talking about Mitra. I think we got the investigation method wrong."
"Explain it."
"Not on the phone. We need to meet."
"Fine. Meet me at 12 in the noon. My office."
It was packed with their whole team in Sandeep's office, courtesy Vishal's efforts to gather them all in his panic.
"So, what is it you wanted to say?" Sandeep questioned.
"From the start we had assumed that this Sashi guy had targeted Mitra because she had witnessed him kidnap some unknown woman. What if that wasn't the start of it all, the primary reason?"
Sandeep was surprised. "What else would it be?"
Vishal explained Mitra's routine of social activism, showing them the many incidents she had posted to social networking sites.
"Remember, the killer definitely said he wanted to expose the rights and wrongs she had done, the real her behind a mask she wears. It could be possible that he was talking about her social activities. Either he has been viewing her complain about things or has been one of the persons involved in any of Mitra's complaints. In either case he could have felt himself or the perpetrators being wronged because of the accusation, and assumed Mitra was acting righteous while hiding her "real" self. What if he was trying a revenge shot on her? That would explain why he chose to film her and broadcast the videos, to do the whole revenge episode in the same way Mitra used to expose the unfairness of others. It would be ironically satisfying to someone like him."
Sandeep prodded it further, "Then where would that other woman he killed fit into this whole thing?"
Vishal had the answer for that. "He had been stalking Mitra for a long time to get his revenge and this woman somehow came in between. Or maybe she was unrelated to Mitra and he had gone after her for a different purpose; in which case it might have been a coincidence that Mitra witnessed it. Being caught in the act by her again would have angered him further. Otherwise there is no personal connection I can make between Mitra and Sashi."