The Dangerous Trail

Revelations & Learnings

Shravan and Suman joined the team who were having a nice time playing cards as the train jutted along the railway track along stretches of green paddy fields stretching for miles as the rising sun kissed the earth. Nothing could give away that Suman and Sharvan just had a dirty face-off. Although Shravan played it cool, there was a steely quietness around Suman who seemed to be stiffer than usual. Shravan thought he was attuned to her so he could notice the change in demeanor, but he soon realized that Aneesh also had noticed it when he heard him asking Suman "What happened Suman? Is something wrong, you seem to be upset". Shravan had a tinge of jealousy which was probably something he had not yet realized or maybe his ego was hurt at Aneesh being able to get closer to Suman rather than him. Shravan grudgingly whispered to himself "So they are on first names, but I have to call her Officer...oh now he notices her behavior too". He was not sure if he was saying this aloud or it was something else but the exact moment he looked, he saw Suman looking straight at him, and immediately Shravan looked away as if he had been caught stealing.

After a 3.5hrs journey, the train rolled into the busy Chennai Central and the team started winding up their games and pulling out their luggage when Aneesh asked Suman "You could have taken the Air India flight to Chennai, you are covered in NCB right". Suman said, "Yes, but it's anyways a short journey why waste taxpayer's money". Aneesh smiled and took a jibe at Shravan saying "Shravan learn something, you don't even think before wasting your parents' money and here she is saving taxpayers' money". Shravan noticed that Suman had not waited to hear his response and walked out of the compartment. He replied to Aneesh "yes try and impress her as much as you can, who knows she might be key to your next promotion". At times Shravan thought whether at all he could call Aneesh his friend they were like chalk and cheese, but they had been roommates during their training and had some good times together so despite Aneesh trying to spite him it was also true they had a bonding. The loud horns of the trains chugging in and out of the station and the hubbub of commuters dashing to and fro had Sharvan's mind muddled and he let his current thoughts subside and romped across with the team as the smell of the dosa from the infamous Sarvana Bhawan hit his nostrils. He jumped and said, "How about breakfast at the famous Sarvana Bhavan with the super energetic coffee". All agreed and he saw Suman agree too for a change he felt there was something at least common ground for both. Shravan did not know why it gave him a sense of comfort.

Having a good breakfast, recharging their energy levels the team headed out to NCB's zonal office in Chennai. The office was a quaint one with blue-tinted glass, the same color as the building walls with an orange outline. Shravan cringed at the sense of colors but once inside he felt satisfied with the interiors and the beautiful view. The interiors were comfortable although not very classy and the side of the building faced the beach. It had an open terrace with a pantry at the top and in the evenings, it would be heavenly with the sea winds blowing across. Soon it was time for work and the team was provided with photographs of the suspects, sites, and events that raised suspicions. The current minister Sundarkumar Reddy had risen from a very modest background to the level he is today. The question was not about his modest background as a farmer but what he cultivated. A few years ago the government had ordered a strict crackdown on the opium and ganja cultivators across the country and a lot of crops in Himachal Pradesh, Jammu, and Kashmir, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Andhra Pradesh was burnt. Some of these lands belonged to Sundarkumar but he had escaped jail as it could not be proved that the land belonged to him although NCB had good information that it was SR was the man behind them. Still, the land was not registered under his name. Post that he had disappeared from headlines for 2-3years before he was again noticed when he spearheaded the agitation against farmer suicides. Although the official records say that he had been in Dubai for some time working as a construction engineer and he returned to his village to help farmers in the time of distress, NCB thought it was just a cover-up. It was the stage for his grand entry into the illicit drug trade scene.

After the briefing the forum was set for questions from the team:

Saheb: Any latest case, any direct link to the drug trade, has he been caught in the drug supply chain

Subbu(VSubramnian, Zonal Director Chennai): No nothing, absolutely nothing. We believe that when he almost got caught for cultivating opium illegally, he became very careful and learned the tricks of the trade from his Dubai masters

Shravan: Any letter, document, photographs which that could link to his partners

Subbu: No nothing. That's how he had escaped last time nothing was in his name. No house, no land, no vehicle not even a cycle, no signature nothing, not even a bank account.

Aneesh: How does he survive? without a bank account?

Subbu: He has everything but all in the name of people with whose help his drug network works and his relatives and these people must be considering his as their God and even if they sniff any of us doing surveillance on him, we are gone so this has to be extremely discreet surveillance and with caution.

Suman: So how did we pinpoint him and why now?

Subbu: Till now we did not have a clue until a month back when this Maoist attack happened in Gadchiroli. Post the Maoist attack the police had launched a massive manhunt and avenged the death of their forces. One of these men who was killed was identified as a truck driver who was once apprehended at the border and NCB had caught about 10kgs of high-quality opium from the state borders between Karnataka and AP. This transporter was one of the key links which could unravel the leads for the case but he is dead in the police encounter but we have ground intelligence that this man was seen with our target a few weeks before the attack which has raised our suspicions. This is not just drugs now, this money is being used for narco-terrorism and if not curtailed here, it will threaten the well-being of not just the states but the nation. For now, SR is openly almost threatening the elected government by turning the farmer agitation into a political movement. If he succeeds then the state and its activities will be under his control. So, now you know why it is important for the Govt to crack this.

Sashank: What surveillance options do we have and what are the locations?

Subbu: There are very less but we will divide the team into various groups for various purposes like storage surveillance, communication surveillance, financial surveillance, contacts surveillance. We do not have specific locations so we will need first contacts and gather data to make our surveillance effective. What do you think would be the good modes for identifying locations for surveillance?

A lot of suggestions flew around from drones to cameras to police raids etc when Shravan spoke up.

Shravan: Given the density of population and the sensitivity of the operation, we should go for human surveillance and not any kind of electronic surveillance on its own. We can empower human surveillance with monitoring devices. We can identify assets (spies) in the daily people who go in and out of the target localities and then cultivate these assets to do work for us which could be health workers, vegetable vendors, plumbers, electricity workers.

Suman thought that was smart and after a long time they looked at each other and Shravan thought for the first time in the day Suman had given a small smile and a nod and his spirits lifted with that. The discussions continued for some more time as they surveyed the data provided for more clues when Suman suddenly pointed out that she could see a pattern. All of them listened to her with rapt attention. She picked up a few photographs of the raids that they had done earlier, and the recent ambush and she held up for everyone to look. With very close observation some of the photographs had a newspaper showing up of a very local daily and it showed a post box number and a similar pattern was showing in pictures from two more raids. Although every clipping did not have a newspaper photo or a postbox number Suman wanted to take a re-look at the articles found in each raid and look up the newspapers of those days or a week earlier to see if some postbox number was there, possibly that was there modus operandi. Shravan thought that was an intelligent observation though his colleagues did not seem to think so and again this time he nodded at Suman as others laughed at her idea. At the end of the discussion, Shravan was sure that Suman was intelligent and sharp and the opinionated view that he had conjured up was slowly breaking. He was already starting to have second thoughts about his decision to drop out of the mission. The mission was pretty challenging and there was a high chance he might not work with Suman at all if there were different teams.

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