by Deepanshu Srivastava
Indrajeet Naik, a driver in Mumbai, was a pretentious man and had lots of dreams in his eyes. He wanted to have his own travel – agency. One day he met a person named Dhanraj Patil and when Patil came to know about the ambitions of Indrajeet, he offered him to join his fleet of taxis as a driver during day times and to help him in his hooch business during the night. Although Indrajeet was a hard-working and honest person to make quick money to fulfill his dreams, he readily accepted the offer. So, he started playing taxi during day time and at night, he used to deliver the illegal liquor to the addresses provided by Patil. After a few weeks of doing the dual jobs of Patil, Indrajeet’s s conscious did not allow him to carry on.
He, therefore, left the job in Patil and joined a Mumbai industrialist, Mr. Rajyavardhan Chauhan as his driver. Chauhan had only one son named Shankar Chauhan, who was in the film-making business. Indrajeet used to pick – up and drop Shankar at the Film City. With his punctuality, discipline, and hard work Indrajeet soon became a blue-eyed man of Chauhan’s family. Florina Coutinho, a girl from Paris befriended Shankar on a social media site a few months ago and at Shankar’s request came to Mumbai to meet him. Observing Florina’s difficulty in English conversation, Shankar asked Indrajeet’s sister Jaya Naik to start teaching spoken English to Florina. Shankar also asked Indrajeet to take Florina in and around Mumbai City to show her the places of a visitor’s delight. Gradually over the days while traveling Flourina got impressed with Indrajeet’s desire of owning a travel agency. She further suggested he to think of beginning a start-up by raising funds using the government’s scheme. When days passed Florina and Indrajeet started liking each other and ultimately fell in love. Slowly Indrajeet also came to know about the bitter relationship between Shankar and his father and also Shankar’s problem in his business with his overseas business partner Mr. David Johnson. On the other hand, Shankar smelt the growing closeness of Florina and Indrajeet.
Annoyed by Indrajeet over this issue, Shankar changed his mind to continue as his guarantor for securing the bank’s loan taken by Indrajeet to start his travel agency. To show Florina Mumbai’s traditions, Indrajeet and Florina planned to visit a nearby Garba night. The same evening Shankar asked Florina to accompany him to the premiere show of a newly released Bollywood film. However, Florina was reluctant to go to the movie as her understanding of Hindi was weak. But on Shankar’s repeated requests she became ready to go. On the way, Florina confessed to Shankar that she had developed emotions for Indrajeet and wanted to marry him. Hearing this, Shankar got astonished.
Driving his car in a fit of rage, Shankar eventually met with an accident at a checkpoint killing two police constables on the spot and making an elderly person badly injured. Florina was shocked to witness the horrifying car accident and asked Shankar to take the three for medical help immediately. However, Shankar snubbed Florina and said that if he got down to do the same, the on-lookers gathered at the accident site would hand over him to the police. Therefore he drove away from the car at its fullest speed and managed to escape from the accident site. Florina got horrified over this act of Shankar. On the other hand, Indrajeet started roaming around the streets of Mumbai in a melancholy mood. Coincidentally Indrajeet came near the same accident site and anxiously wanted to know about the accident after parking his car at a nearby place. When he came to know about the severity of the crime he immediately left the site. A few hours later a team of crime police reached the spot and started their investigation. The footage of the CCTV camera at the accident spot showed Indrajeet’s car parked near the site. After finding that the car belonged to Mr. Chauhan, the police team reached Chauhan’s house and got to know that it’s the driver is Indrajeet, who worked for Chauhan.
Indrajeet was summoned to the police station for further inquiry. The police also came to know that in the past Indrajeet was involved in hooch distribution in the city. They immediately put Indrajeet under police custody for committing the serious crime although Indrajeet claimed his ignorance about the event as he had arrived late at the accident site. Police continued their investigation and interviewed several eye-witnesses of the crime and came to know that after the accident they had seen a car fleeing away in which the son Shankar of industrialist Chauhan was in the driver’s seat accompanied by a foreign lady. Eyewitnesses also told police the timing of the accident and running away from the car driven by Shankar. Based on statements of the eyewitnesses and a few other important pieces of evidence the police team reached Chauhan’s place and questioned Shankar about his passing away from the accident site and about a foreign lady sitting beside him. When Shankar’s father came to know that the police team was on its way to catch his son in the hit and run case he used his influence to pressurize the police team not to implicate his son and frame Indrajeet for the crime who was already in police custody. Since the investigative team was aware of the powerfulness of Chauhan’s family in the city it agreed to drop Shankar’s name from the charge sheet. However, the police team was on the lookout for a foreign lady who, according to the eyewitnesses, was sitting beside Shankar in the car which was seen running away from the accident spot at the time of the accident. On the other hand, as a precaution, the father-son duo asked Florina not to come out of their house till the matter was settled. Police put up the case in the criminal court for a hearing. The son Anmol Katkar of the elderly person who got badly injured and had been practicing in the same court appeared for Indrajeet. Indrajeet briefed Anmol on the entire episode of the accident. Indrajeet also informed Chinmay that Shankar was driving the car with his friend Florina sitting beside him and the two had passed through the accident site.
Meanwhile, Florina text-messaged Indrajeet that she was made to hide in Chauhan’s house because she was the eye – witness to the accident done by Shankar. But seeing the brutality of crime and apathy of Shankar towards the deceased constables she wanted to narrate the entire incident in the court as a witness. Indrajeet discussed the message of Florina with Anmol who produced the text – message in the court the very next day. Consequently, the court ordered the police to rescue Florina from Chauhan’s house and present her in court. After completely hearing the lawyers of the two sides the judge found Shankar guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Two-year imprisonment to his father for forcing Florina to hide in his house was also awarded. Indrajeet thanked Chinmay for all the support and for making him free from a false case. He also thanked Florina for her courage to speak out the truth in the court and get the real culprit booked. To this, Florina replied that although Shankar was his long-time friend through a dating app, and she was a guest of Shankar, her conscious did not allow her to continue such a friendship. Had she known the cruel character of Shankar she would not have befriended him. She also added that one should be careful while making friends on apps and not make advances in such friendships without necessary checks. Six months had passed since then and Indrajeet and Florina were now a happily married couple.About the Author:Deepanshu Srivastava is a freelance sports writer and a storyteller from Pune.