WANTED

It was a Monday evening and Raj was reluctantly working at his desk. Sonia called and asked if he can drop her at Guindy. Raj accepted to drop her as he wanted a brief break from work. Sonia was in Sari. Raj gave a weird look at her. “Can’t you go in Auto?” Raj asked Sonia. Sonia persuaded Raj to drop her. Sonia quickly took the pillion seat in her usual style of putting her right leg over the left. Raj warned her to sit properly but Sonia never listened. They both reached kathipara signal. Raj stopped for the signal. He was at the left most corner of the road just few inches away from the platform. Sonia was adjusting her posture and in the course of doing it changed to left leg over the right. While doing so she by mistake hit a person with her leg who passed by. She was quick to apologize but also laughed senselessly. The person she hit was a cop of the traffic department. The way she giggled irritated the cop. To vent out his ego out, he caught hold of Raj. Raj was not wearing his helmet that day. He asked Raj to park his bike aside and come with him to his office near the corner of the road. Raj believed that a sum of 50 Rupees will solve the issue. No helmet, no wallet, so no money and license. This was Raj’s status. So he asked Sonia to pull out 50 bucks from her bag. 4 old ten rupees notes was all Sonia could gather from her shining new bag. Raj pushed the old notes back into her bag and decided to manage somehow. He asked Sonia to wait near his bike for sometime and ran behind the cop to his office.

The office was in the first floor. Raj climbed a strip of narrow steps to reach the office. A medium sized room for the station Inspector followed by a smaller room for his subordinates. This was the organization of the police booth. The person behind whom Raj came went straight into the second room. Raj too went along. There he was asked to pay 100 Rupees. Raj politely explained that he would surely pay them the penalty but only after dropping Sonia at the nearby bus stop. He said he will have to go back to office or home to get them the money. Learning that Raj did not carry his wallet, and that he is not having his license, the policeman used intimidating words against him. Raj who is never used to bad treatment anywhere couldn’t take those words. He quickly jumped into an argument with the cop. The argument grew big soon. The cop was accompanied by another colleague who was too rude with Raj. The cops soon started manhandling Raj. They seized Raj’s I-POD from him, asking him to take it after paying the penalty. They pulled Raj’s ID card too. Raj soon grasped the intentions of the policemen. They wanted revenge for the insult the unassuming girl had caused. Raj’s efforts to pacify them did not work out. They soon started with their word play. The motive was to demoralize Raj. Talking bad about the girl, the policemen started warning Raj. They gave him an open threat challenging him that they will make the girl feel for her act. “Let me see how you both cross this signal tomorrow”, these words from the policeman pushed Raj to the ends of his patience. His bike keys, I-pod and the ID card were now under the custody of the policeman. They locked these articles and Raj was made to wait. He could see Sonia waiting restless near his bike from the window. Raj wanted to come out and send Sonia home safely. But he was denied the chance to move out of the room.

Nearly 2 hrs had passed since the whole drama started. Raj lost his patience. He sensed that nothing was going to be fine. He asked the policeman to let him go. But he was roughed up instead. In a fist of anger, Raj pushed one of the policemen. Trouble started here. Before the policeman could hit him back, Raj charged against the policemen forcefully. Raj caught hold of the Lathi of the cop and hit both the men straight on their faces. The cops fell unconscious on the floor. Hearing the heavy disturbance, the Inspector of the station rushed inside the room with his pistol. Another policeman attached to that station also came in running. Raj hit the Inspector pushing down the pistol from his hands. Now that everything ran out of control, Raj grabbed the pistol and wanted to make way out with no intention of triggering it. But when the policeman tried to catch him, Raj in total panic pressed the trigger. The bullet sliced through the Inspector left arm. There was total chaos there. The wounded Inspector cried aloud in pain. The other policeman ran madly shouting out for help. Raj had no other option to run away into the dark. He escaped from the scene into darkness with the pistol.

Two days later…


“WANTED”... Raj’s photo from the ID card was enlarged and posters were stuck all across the city as the MOST WANTED CRIMINAL.