Vishal was pacing in the corridor outside the conference room. He was restless and out of his wits. It was early in the morning and he had barely had any sleep. With the latest video of Mitra out in the public, Sandeep had been contacted by politicians and bureaucrats who breathed down his neck enquiring about Mitra's case, the 'inefficient way' the police were handling the case and why there hadn't been much progress.
Media was having a field day. There were so many articles popping up and news channels were sensationalizing the video. Censorship went to a toss when it came to airing Mitra's fall. But then, media hadn't shied away from broadcasting her alleged murder earlier either.
Public opinion was spewing beyond control. The stories stretched as far as Mitra purposely trapping Lekha to get her murdered.
Vishal checked the WhatsApp and Facebook groups of his school to see his classmates discussing the death of Lekha with a renewed fervour. Their memories weren't so accurate, as some of them seemed to get confused about the reason why Mitra had been so involved in the investigation.
Their discussion was much better than the ones on public forums as the ones with better memories corrected the others. They had seen Mitra speak up on her own accord, suffer and leave the school, and it had been unforgettable.
Vishal sent messages across all his school social media groups stating his stance, "Please don't spread any rumours. If you can, please speak positive things that could actually save her. We are the only ones who had witnessed the whole episode, and so we are the ones who can state facts instead of blasphemy-worth speculations or falsehood."
His fellow schoolmates complied with his request; they didn't want Mitra's blood on their hands. Especially the girls who had been with Lekha that evening; they had always had a feeling of uneasiness for letting Lekha out alone that evening and now watching Mitra being persecuted, especially after being perpetrators of school violence against her the said evening, they couldn't bear to contribute any further to the misery.
Just as the police and Vishal predicted, media started staking out at Lekha's house, hounding her parents to share their opinions on Mitra's involvement in their daughter's death.
They didn't give any consideration while twisting their questions and ignoring the cold shoulder they received from Lekha's parents. Lekha's father made a point by walking out into the media's lair outside his house and giving a statement that he knows very well the facts of his daughter's death and that Mitra was innocent. He asked the media to leave, to not drag his daughter's name any further and threatened to get the police bind them over from reaching out to him or his family again.
The police in the town were no different. They gave statements that any questions related to Mitra should be directed to the police in Bangalore who were handling her case, and the original officers who had handled Lekha's case had long left the place through transfers and retirements, which meant media wouldn't be able to get any information from them either.
"They are gaslighting her," Sandeep observed. He had been watching clips of news channels twisting the allegations raised by Sashi against Mitra out of control.
Vishal could only watch in pain and horror. This was what Mitra had feared all her life, the reason why she never spoke out about what she had seen: because people were bound to exaggerate, speculate, misunderstand, blame and shun her. There was not one ounce of truth in what the public spewed and reasoning ruled only in a small percentage of the population.
Experts opined that a murderer was intimidating Mitra into a helpless, psychologically tattered position, rendering her unable to defend herself or speak up. He was essentially manipulating the whole public into confusion and divided conclusions so that he wouldn't be held accountable for his actions. He was preparing a grand stage for delivering his judgment which public wouldn't oppose and execute an innocent person without a heavy backlash.
The question was, how much could a murderer be trusted?
Crimes and murders don't need valid grounds and justification for their occurance, yet murderers and criminals always manage to present acute reasons to rationalize unspeakable acts.
Sashi was mounting a similar stage.
"We need to find his motive," Sandeep stated in their early morning meeting.
"He is obsessed with her. He is a psychopath who wants to play with her and torture her," Vishal spoke with conviction.
"No, if that were true, he would be doing that privately. Why broadcast it?"
"Psychopaths are attention seekers. It is a common case with serial killers, arsonists and serial burglars. They grow confident after a few initial crimes and then start leaving codes as signatures and come out into public with a boldness that no one would be able to catch them." Vishal wasn't sure why Sandeep was questioning something so obvious.
"No, he isn't challenging us. He never threw out a word or bait to the police or public about our inability to nab him. None of his conversations so far have been about highlighting himself. Whatever he is doing is too personal. We are missing something," Sandeep countered.
Vishal was as much frustrated as Sandeep. He had a vague expectation of Sashi having a grudge against Mitra, of his obsession with having Mitra recognize him on her own. It was impossible though, Mitra had always been incapable of remembering people's faces unless they were properly known to her. She wouldn't have recognized the actual culprit who assaulted Lekha if he danced in front of her.
She was in a bind, and so was everyone.
Dhara tracked the latest video to a remote photocopy shop which was two kilometres away from Pritam's store.
"This upload seems to have been done in a rush," Dhara had remarked. "It wasn't so guarded as the previous videos."
Sirens blared as the police sped to the location: a small, shabby, residential neighbourhood. The store they found was run by an old man who did the basic photocopy work for his customers and gave them the liberty to give print commands from emails or softcopies through his computer in the store on their own. In his words, "I am not so good with all this internet and computer stuff. So, the youngsters who come here normally use the computer and give the print. I just count the pages and get the payment based on it."
There was a CC camera fixed opposite the store, so the police had a shimmering hope of scooping out the culprit. However, when they collected the CCTV footage of the store and a series of other cameras in the area, they were slapped again with the glossed over fact that they were facing a smart criminal.
He was good at covering his tracks, both online and offline. He knew where the cameras were, covered his face pretty well with a mask and a hat and disappeared in a CCTV blind spot. It was just like the other CCTV footages the police had analyzed to see and trace the person who had stalked Mitra. He was always wearing dark clothes and made sure he was covered up well, and disappeared at some blind spots from further tracing.
The direction he headed to was towards Mitra's neighbourhood, and yet, he could have been easily, purposefully misleading the cops.