Vishal called up Ram twice on his way: before he boarded the flight and as soon as he landed.
The answer was same every time he asked about Mitra: she was out of reach. He made his way to the IT Park where Mitra's office was housed. Ram was waiting for him at the entrance of the office.
"Still no news?" It was the first thing Vishal asked Ram when they met.
"No. Do you have any other contacts who can track her down?"
"No. You are the only one of her friends I know."
"How about her parents?"
"I doubt they know anything. If we call them up and tell them she's missing, they will panic."
Both stood thinking of ways to handle the situation.
"Let's go to the police station," Vishal said firmly.
An hour later, they were seated in a crowded and unruly police station of the neighbourhood of Mitra's house. Every Police Constable and officer seemed busy in their own work or in some hassle with filing complaints and interrogating people. It took Vishal and Ram some time to get hold of the Inspector and start a conversation with him.
The Inspector, Raghavan, was a lean and tall guy but with a heavy voice, a serious face and an analytical look that could scare people into answering his questions.
"Since when is she missing?" Inspector Raghavan asked nonchalantly.
"She left office around 7 PM yesterday," Ram answered.
"Did you check everywhere?" Raghavan questioned.
"Yes, and we are sure she is in danger," Vishal said urgently.
"You both are her colleagues?" Raghavan asked.
"Ram is her colleague. I am... her best friend," Vishal answered with a straight face.
Raghavan studied him for a moment and turned to Ram. "Did you see her getting into a cab or a bus?"
"No. But I know she usually walks out of the IT Park, catches a bus till this neighbourhood and then walks to her home."
"I know you are worried, but we have a protocol and procedures in place. We would have to enquire at her office and near her home, ask all of her family, friends and acquaintances. You can file an FIR here. I will send a Constable to enquire," Raghavan looked disinterested with his words.
"Sir, please! It would be too slow and late," Vishal started.
"I know. But that's how things work." He paused and asked, "Have you enquired everyone you know who is close to her? What about her parents? Have you asked them if they know anything about her whereabouts?" Raghavan asked the two complainants.
"Mitra doesn't have a lot of friends and none of her colleagues know anything. As for her parents, we didn't contact them yet, Sir. Mitra isn't so conversational with them and she doesn't report her whereabouts so diligently at home either. We thought calling them up might create panic for them in case they really don't know where she is," Vishal answered carefully.
"We still need to find out," Raghavan iterated. "Call them up yourself and ask or I will make the constable contact them. The latter would be more damaging to her parents' peace."
Reluctantly, Vishal rang up Mitra's mother and politely asked her if Mitra had contacted them, given that her phone was off. Unsurprisingly, there had been no communication to them either from their daughter.
Additionally, they had been fretting over the video too, recognizing the features of the woman in it to be too similar to Mitra's. Vishal assured them that it wouldn't be Mitra in the video and promised to call them once he gets incontact with her.
After the call ended, he looked back at Raghavan more confidently and uttered, "No update from her parents either, Sir. You need to look into this."
"We still have protocols for situations like this," Raghavan started.
Vishal felt his temper rising. He took out his phone, browsed through it for a moment and then extended it to the Inspector to view the display on the phone.
"Have you seen this video, Sir?" he asked.
Raghavan took the phone, curious yet displeased. As he played the video and saw the content, recognition sparked in his eyes. He looked up at the two men sitting in from of him.
"You mean to say the woman in this video is your friend?" he sounded strict.
Vishal and Ram looked at each other. They knew they couldn't be absolutely sure, but there were too many coincidences.
"The voice," Vishal answered. "The voice of that woman is same as our friend's. The way she talks and sounds is just like Mitra. And she has been missing since yesterday."
"Do you have a photo of Mitra?"
Ram showed her picture on his phone. As Raghavan studied the picture and a snapshot of the woman in the video, he could see the similarity in the visible facial features: the jaw line, the lips and the hair.
"Can you now see why we are so concerned, Sir?" Vishal asked, trying to drive a point.
"Can you wait outside for a while?" Raghavan pointed towards the waiting area near the entrance of the Police Station, indicating them to leave him alone for a while.
Vishal and Ram got up reluctantly, doubting the intentions of the Inspector. He didn't reveal any surprise or concern on his poker face. They stepped out of the Inspector's room and went towards the empty chairs in the waiting area.
Raghavan rang up the Police Control Room and consulted with other Police Officials.
Did they receive any leads regarding the video? Did anyone else come forward with information about the woman in the video? Have they checked the validity of the video properly? Should he investigate if anyone came forward with a lead?
He gathered there were a few people who had dropped by various police stations to claim that they knew the woman. The victim in all the claims was a family member of the claimants who had been missing for months, even years in some cases.
People were inquiring if the person in the video was their family member. None of them were sure; they had all been claims of false hope. Though the police had a fair idea that the victim wasn't anyone from the missing cases already registered, they were trying to dig into the cases independently.
Raghavan could understand the gist of it. He sat thinking once the call was over.
It wouldn't be a woman who went missing months or years earlier. Why would the assailant release that kind of a video after such prolonged time in the case of a long-term abduction? Vishal and Ram, on the other hand, had a stronger case. The girl had gone missing just a few hours before the video surfaced and there were similarities in the facial features. What if their friend was indeed the victim?
He called in the two men, with his poker face back in place.
"Do you have any suspicions on anyone who would kidnap her?" he asked them.
They both looked visibly conflicted as they weighed in their suspicions and what to say.
"Seems like you know something," he observed.
"It's because you too might have an idea about it, Sir," Vishal spoke softly.
"What do you mean?"
"A couple of weeks back you must have received a presumed abduction complaint. A girl had called the police to report a kidnap she had witnessed, but nothing turned out in the investigation. There was no one who had gone missing in the neighbourhood; no one else had reported anything."
"Was that in this neighbourhood? Near the Overhead Water Tank?" Raghavan remembered bits and pieces of the case. He had sent out the constables and his subordinates to investigate it in the middle of the night when a girl called claiming that she had witnessed a woman being kidnapped.
The Police had done a strong preliminary investigation, but they couldn't find traces of anyone being abducted. There were no CCTV cameras in the vicinity, so they had relied on the neighbours' and witness' accounts.
No one was reported missing in the days following and few of the people living nearby had claimed that the girl who had reported the incident shouldn't be trusted: she had once struck a man who was playfully pulling his sister,assuming that he was attacking her. The Police eventually closed the case.
"How is that case related to your friend?" Raghavan had a bad hunch that the victim might be one of the two reported.
"It was Mitra who had reported the kidnap," Vishal replied promptly.
There was a pause.
Raghavan was trying to link the two incidents: the kidnap Mitra had reported and her own incidence of going missing in action.
Ram had known something was going on with Mitra, though she had never told him the whole story. He was hearing the details for the first time and was quite stunned, his thoughts running in the same direction as Raghavan's.
"So, she reported a kidnap that was never found to be true and now she is also missing," Raghavan summarized the whole incident. "You believe it is the same culprit?"
"Maybe."
"You have any other information?" Raghavan turned to Ram with his question.
"She has been learning taekwondo and kick boxing for two years now; I am one of her instructors. And a couple of weeks back, she asked me to intensify the training. Must be after what she had witnessed that night."
Raghavan called in his subordinate. He showed him Mitra's photo and asked him if she was the one who had called in the false kidnap incident. The subordinate confirmed it was her. He further informed them that she had dropped in at the Police Station a couple of times after that to enquire if they had found anything about the kidnap, and returned in disappointment.
Raghavan toyed with a pen lying on his table, analyzing and fitting in the sequence of the incidents. There were many possibilities, none of which were yet substantial. There were only circumstantial evidences, but enough to file an FIR and start a thorough investigation.
If the news about Mitra broke out, it would invite a lot more complications and media and public attention. They needed to find Mitra first.
Before another such video gets released.
It took them a few minutes to register the FIR.