Usual peaceful Thursday morning at a city.
People going on with their daily life as usual. The Garbage van came to collect waste. The people around, complained and showed their annoyance as the putrid smell from the uncleansed garbage of days was polluting the air. A worker came to do his job. After getting a little near he let out a loud scream.
The seemingly peaceful morning got disturbed by siren of police van. Officers got out of the car and proceeded in between the crowd towards the source of unbearable smell. They all got closer to the human body with cloth on their faces. Two of them sat down to investigate the corpse while others proceeded to question the onlookers and search the surrounding for clues. But the trial was of no avail. The corpse was sent to the morgue to know more about the dead.
An overview report arrived at the police station the very day. The cause of death was recorded as chocking by a string. The murder has taken place three days ago. Victim was in his early forties and didn't have further injuries. It was notified that cause of the body decomposing too much exact time of death and many more details are still unknown. It may be found out after further tests.
The police went through missing reports that matched the description of dead. They found one seemingly to be the one they were looking for. A man named Gautam Banerjee. Married man in his early forties. His wife and brother filed his missing report three days ago. Confirming once again the police reached late man's residence.
Telling the news made the wife so shocked that she was unable to say anything. "Are you ok?" the brother in law's concerned voice broke the ice and made her cry finally. The police showed them the clothes the dead body had. The wailing wife admitted with her trembling voice, "Yes, those're his". After informing them about the dead body's autopsy being done in couple of days and assured that they would receive the body after that. Then taking some medical reports of Mr Gautam to match with autopsy report the police returned.
The next day the area in front of the mortuary was jam-packed with reporters and police. Various reporters with overexcited voice relied on same news, “The dead body discovered at XY area which was brought here yesterday, has somehow disappeared from the morgue overnight”. That created an uproar throughout the whole city. Everyone accused the police for being careless and the conclusion they reached to was the homicide of Mr Gautam Banerjee might not be simple. Hence those careless police officer should not handle the case.
Due to the huge public demand the case was taken away from the police and given to the crime Branch. The crime branch started off from a point where they didn't have the basic info about how and when the death happened. So they started with investigating about the disappearance of the dead body, but that soon came to a dead end.
They started back tracking Mr Gautam’s last destination and about the people he might have met before his very doom. But that was a lost cause too. That's why they took the last resort to investigate the victim's closed ones which included his wife Mrs Shanta Banerjee and his brother Mr Bimal Banerjee.
While looking into Mrs Shanta they discovered something from their neighbours. Mrs Shanta was involved in post marital affair. Police moved swiftly to find out that person. After a little effort they discovered a man named Sourav Gangopadhay. The crime branch confronted Mrs Shanta as Mr Sourav was nowhere to be found. Mrs Shanta in her calm demeanor accepted that she was involved with Sourav but that was a while ago. She wasn't in contact with him recently. They created pressure on her saying, "He must be the one who killed your husband and you must be an accomplice." But her statement remained unchanged. In the meantime Mr Bimal came with a lawyer to bail his sister-in-law out. He opposed the decision of Crime Branch of taking Shanta into custody even after knowing the reason. He stated that he and his brother already knew about Sourav. At that time Shanta and his brother were at odds with each other. That's why Shanta was rebelling with Sourav. But their relation was never serious and Gautam was always aware of this matter. He even told," If you do suspect Sourav for murdering my brother then catch him however you can. But please don't disturb Shanta. She is innocent."
Hence the Crime Branch had to let Shanta go. The case was looking as its solution hopeless as the prime suspect Sourav was nowhere to be found. Suddenly the crime branch found out from insiders information that the apparently dead Gautam was seen at YZ area. They followed the lead in disguise and discovered that "Mr Gautam” contacting someone and after probing they found the ones who were contacted to were none other than Shanta and Bimal. Officers arrested the three of them. Upon questioning Shanta finally broke down. They were the murderer. The one they killed was actually Sourav. Gautam was a criminal of bank robbing case and because of that they devised such an evil plan. By seducing Sourav Shanta succeeded in getting him to have plastic surgery and look like Gautam. Sourav to be with Shanta agreed to it. Then they killed off Sourav and dumped the body thinking seeing him dead will make the previous criminal case upon Gautam’s name to shut down. Then Gautam taking another identity will continue living a normal life.
The officers recorded the statement of them and proceeded to close the case. They found out where the dead body of Sourav was kept.
The public was impressed to see the case being solved so quickly. Autopsy report came after a few days. The result said: "No traces of plastic surgery is found in the dead body."
Soumili Chakraborty
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