The video exploded over internet as usual. All the speculations public had had about Mitra abandoning a girl to her death got elevated to full-on judgments. Yes, they could see that Mitra was scared and that she regretted her actions. She was trying her best to knock some sense into her captor as to what he did wrong. She was holding out strong in front of a murderer who seemed to be absolutely obsessed with her and was threatening her with the possibilities of hurting the people close to her.
To everyone it was obvious that the video wasn't everything. There were missing links in the narrative. They could understand that he was fixated with her, but didn't know why. They hadn't been privy to the emotional recounting of Sashi's past when he confessed it all to Mitra.
The public had heard of Lekha's murder, but they were not completely exposed to the case records or witness statements.
Sashi's revelation of how Mitra witnessed him about to commit a crime and still kept quiet drove the public to divided opinions: she should have reported it immediately and saved the girl, she must have been scared, she should have interfered in some way, she might have been killed too had she intervened, what could a fifteen year old girl do in such a situation other than escaping alive, and so on.
Many of them agreed with Mitra's defensive stance that she was scared of speaking out the truth, and commended her for at least informing the police of Sashi's presence. Still, it didn't stop the nation from turning her into a gossip piece.
Vishal was in a state of panic and denial. He had been with Mitra, protecting her secret for all those years, and everything lay bare in front of the whole world in the worst way possible. He didn't know which was more horrifying: how Mitra would have to live with the truth that Sashi had killed Lekha for her, or the fact that Mitra was at the mercy of a murderer who had intended to kill him too, or that she had indirectly asked Vishal not to go searching for her, just to keep him safe from Sashi.
He didn't fear facing death; he was an investigative journalist who could as well end up in a pool of blood if he revealed the kind of secrets he knew. He feared Mitra doing something stupid in the name of sacrifice to save him. He knew she was capable of that.
He kept repeating the part of the video where she said, "He won't."
Vishal could see in her face the dread that he might be harmed. But, that wasn't going to stop him. He knew that if their places had been swapped, had it been he who was locked and she who were looking out for him, she wouldn't have stopped searching for him just because a madman threatened to kill her.
At eleven in the night, the moment the video became viral, Vishal received a phone call from an angry Sandeep.
"Come see me now," he commanded.
"I am on my way already," Vishal replied, driving to the police station.
Vishal knew the kind of questions Sandeep would shoot at him. He had kept the DSP in the dark for a long time, never expecting things to get blown up this way.
"You lied to me," Sandeep strongly voiced the minute Vishal walked in through the door.
"About what?" Vishal asked, equally serious.
Standing up from his chair, Sandeep slowly crossed the room towards Vishal, saying, "You didn't tell me the extent of Mitra's involvement in Lekha's death. You hid the fact that she had actually witnessed Lekha being strangled." Facing Vishal abreast, he claimed, "You have always lied. First, you said you are not her boyfriend. Then, you said you didn't know Sashi. And you lied that Mitra wasn't involved in that girl's death when in fact, it all happened because of her."
Vishal could see the anger in Sandeep's eyes, sense the offense he had taken in being blindsided. In his defence, Vishal was equally offended by the way Sandeep was framing the statements.
"Let's take that up one by one," Vishal uttered with conviction. "First, would you have been impartial had I introduced myself as her boyfriend in our first meeting? A girl, with a boyfriend who stays over with her frequently, went missing all of a sudden. Would you have been impartial to it, without judging her or me, been able to take up the case without any prejudice? We all know how the character of a woman with a lover is defined and framed in our society. The moment I revealed our relationship most of your focus would have been on her relationship with me, relationships with other men, if she had another man who could have kidnapped her. Perceptions change with the type of first impression you have of a person. I wanted your focus to be on her kidnap, not her personal life."
Vishal could see the falter in Sandeep's gaze. Sandeep knew he might not have seen through Mitra's integrity had he been made aware of the extent of her romantic relationship. He had seen too many cases of passionate crimes caused by women's affairs. Those past experiences could have as easily clouded his judgement.
"Second," Vishal continued after a pause, "Neither I nor Mitra knew Sashi. You can see that through whatever he has recorded and displayed till date. He had been stalking us since we were in school, and never once did we suspect ourselves to have been at the receiving end of such obsessive behaviour. If we really knew him, Mitra or I would have identified him already. Why would we go through all this hellfire unnecessarily? He has always been in the shadows, just like now, not getting caught by any of us."
Sandeep just looked at him and listened without interruption.
"And third..." Vishal started, but stopped with a sigh. He wasn't sure how to answer that question without giving an opening to a controversy. "It is true that Mitra saw a man holding Lekha in a headlock. At that time, her whole focus was on the fact that Lekha had assaulted her barely an hour before that. She was hurt, and scared, and didn't feel like helping her. Besides, she meant it when she said she didn't assume the man would actually kill Lekha when he had a witness well and alive. You should have understood from the video how devastated Mitra was when the crime actually happened. She could have easily kept quiet had she wanted to stay out of it, or didn't feel guilty. Yet, she testified about seeing the culprit and the exact location of where she had witnessed them."
"You can't get yourself out of this Vishal," Sandeep claimed. "She altered her statement to hide the fact that she had seen a person being strangled and did nothing. Do you understand the difference between what she actually saw and what she reported? The difference between witnessing an interaction, and aiding and abetting a crime. She did the latter."
Vishal was exasperated. "In which way did she aid and abet the murder?"
Sandeep raised his voice, "Sashi murdered the girl for her, and your girlfriend kept quiet even after witnessing it."
"And she didn't know any of it!" Vishal spat back at him. "Did he inform her that he was on a murder spree for her? Did she feign ignorance after getting to know the whole situation? No. Hell, he even planned to kill me for being friends with her. You think Mitra would have stayed silent when I was targeted? How can you make it all look like her fault? Mitra's a victim of Sashi as much as Lekha is. You can't blame the victim for escaping the culprit unscathed. Blame him for turning into a murderer. Besides, Mitra saw only one person, Sashi, that night. Whatabout the others? There were three culprits in Lekha's murder. Why were the police never able to catch the others when Mitra had given so much information?"
Both men could feel the heightened tension in the room between them.
Vishal quickly tried to bring it under control. "You have no idea how tormented Mitra has been till now because of that incident. She was in depression for years, suffered from sleep paralysis and even now has recurring episodes of it. The night three weeks back when she had seen Sashi kidnap another woman, she went nuts thinking it might have been a hallucination. She blames herself for not being to save another woman, or worse, falling so sick in the head that she is imagining such crimes. You can't be this cruel to someone who has suffered so much and regretted her inaction twelve years ago."
Sandeep backed off. He took one glance at how sincere Vishal looked and turned away, trying to clear his head.
"He might be already keeping an eye on you, on our investigation," Sandeep opined slowly.
"No one's following me, as far as I know," Vishal replied. Catching an expression of ridicule on Sandeep's face, he added, "I am a journalist now, not a fifteen-year-old school boy. I would know if anyone stalks me. Besides, Sashi doesn't seem to be bothered by me as long as I don't intrude on him."
"We need to find this guy," Sandeep said. "We can't let the public criticism keep increasing against us. They don't know how much we are trying from our end and keep saying we are inefficient."
"Are you bothered about the public sentiment? I am worried about the girl who's locked up," Vishal countered.
"I am bothered by that too. But my duty doesn't cover just one person. She is our priority, I agree. But, public opinion matters too. You think Mitra will be okay after she comes back, with this sort of public picture of her? They will suffocate her," Sandeep predicted.
Vishal had been immensely bothered by that too. He had been thinking of ways to salvage the situation. Still, there were other priorities.
"We need to reinvestigate Lekha's case," Vishal surmised. "Sashi said he was often abused by his father and was locked up after that incident. We can start by asking around the town if anyone knows a possible father-son duo who were violent; someone who didn't turn up for work the day after Lekha's murder. I know the town was bustling that day with gossip and police everywhere. People would remember things."
Sandeep agreed with it. Vishal offered to travel to the town personally and collaborate with the town police there, while Sandeep will keep searching for Sashi, with help from Dhara.
They planned to identify the location of the latest video's upload, to get a radius of the area of Sashi' presence. With the number of spots they had of Sashi's digital indulgence, they were sure they could narrow down his residence to a locality.