The bus stop was situated at one of the darkest corners of a small road. There were no stores nearby and just a few houses. A majority of the road lined along a walled empty piece of land which was a private property.
There was a small lane between the land and a dingy house which led to Mitra's house. The lane stretched out with multi-storied houses, high walled buildings and a couple of other private walled empty pieces of land.
There were lesser number of people roaming the streets compared to the hotspots of Bangalore, majority of them heading out for work or to get their necessities for the day.
"If Mitra really went missing here, wouldn't anyone have noticed it?" Ahmed observed.
"Depends on the time. There are barely any people moving around here during nights," Vishal answered.
The three of them walked along the lane, trying to see if any of the houses or existing properties and the people living there would inhibit an abduction from happening. Most of the houses had their back to the lane and a majority of the windows were closed.
Few people skittered around busy in their own worlds. They continued walking, tracing the route to Mitra's house, turning left at a tiny crossroad junction, walking along two more crossroads leading to the only convenience store present in the area.
Ahmed went in and enquired the shopkeeper if he had witnessed or heard of any assault on a woman or kidnap on the street. The answer was negative.
"She wouldn't have come this far," Vishal deduced.
"How can you say that?" Basava was sceptical.
"The next cross-road leads to her apartment. The watchman sits near the gate and his family keeps wandering there. Someone would have noticed if anything happened on that street. If there really was an incident here, it should have happened before we reach the convenience store." Vishal turned back to the lane that they had come walking through. "We should take our chances with the people living in this lane, enquire if anyone saw her or evenanything least bit suspicious."
The three of them split up and went knocking on the doors of the houses, a picture of Mitra open on their phone screens for reference and asking the residents if they had seen a woman being assaulted or abducted near their home.
A lot of them had no idea what the investigation was about. Vishal had a bitter experience with a couple of residents, being questioned about his relevance as a journalist to go around enquiring about an assault and abduction case.
There was one three-storied housing complex where he went around knocking on the door of every house which overlooked the road.
The residents of the third house on the second floor gave him the much-needed information.
A woman in her mid-thirties opened the door. She was clearly a housewife and was busy watching a noisy daily soap on TV.
"Hello ma'am," Vishal greeted her. Showing his identification card, he introduced himself and asked her if she had seen any assault incident on the road in the last couple of days.
"Assault? I don't think so," the woman answered doubtfully.
Vishal glanced at the windows behind her that overlook the road. They were open.
"Did you see anything strange the day before yesterday, during the night, on the road? If not an assault, anything at all that might have been different?" he put out his words slowly, calmly, trying to make her feel a sense of importance.
The woman looked sideways, biting her lower lip, trying to dig through her memories.
"Well, there was something that happened in the time you mentioned," she said slowly.
"What is it?" Vishal was very patient.
"I saw it for a moment while closing the windows. There were a couple of people fighting on the road."
"Was it a physical fight or a verbal one?"
"A physical fight. Two people were actually hitting each other," the woman explained.
Vishal sensed something was off. "How long did it happen? And do you know why they fought?"
"Don't know any of that. I saw them momentarily when I was closing the windows. Watched them for like ten seconds only. Don't know what happened after the fight," the woman shrugged.
"Was there a woman involved in the fight?" Vishal prodded.
The woman thought for a moment and said, "Umm... I can't say for sure. One of them did have long hair, but there was lot of darkness and I couldn't see clearly if it was a woman or just a hippie man with long hair."
"Did you see their faces clearly? What were they wearing?"
The woman shook her head, "Like I said, couldn't see their faces. They were wearing dark clothes. The long hair person was carrying a backpack, I think a laptop bag and wore a heavy grey jacket. That person was a little short in height and slim compared to the other one. The other person was tall, wearing a hat, a scarf and a dark jacket."
Vishal could feel his heart beating fast. He pursed his lips, thinking fast. "Just a moment," he excused himself and called up Basava and Ahmed to get to the house he was enquiring at.
As the woman explained what she saw to the two policemen again, with more confidence and clarity, Vishal wondered a few things.
He showed the woman Mitra's picture and asked her if she knew her.
The woman studied the picture and asked, "Doesn't she live in the apartment complex over there?"
"You know her?" Basava asked her back.
"Not personally," the woman clarified. "I have seen her a few times in the neighbourhood, at the convenience store. And she was the one who had raised a ruckus once: hitting the man who lives downstairs because he had pulled his sister playfully. She hit him swearing at him for trying to assault a girl. A lot of the apartment people had tried to clear the misunderstanding for her. She seemed very paranoid and tough."
"Can you remember if she was involved in the fight yesterday?" Vishal asked her slowly.
"No... I..." the woman faltered, thinking it through again. "I really wasn't able to see the faces. But now that I rethink about it, the person with long hair might be a girl."
"Can I ask you something? Why didn't you interfere in between or report the incident? A woman was possibly being assaulted and you just ignored it?" Vishal placed his words carefully, trying only to get the woman's intentions, any other information and not inflict any blame on her.
The woman looked genuinely confused. "Because random street fights keep happening around here at times. No one bothers about them much. It is not that unusual. Besides, people who try to stop two people from fighting often become the scapegoats. I didn't want to get involved in that mess."
"Still, a girl was being attacked. Didn't you feel like helping her?" Vishal lost his calm.
The woman looked at him as if he was missing something obvious.
"I didn't," she said strongly. "Because, normally when girls are attacked, the first thing they do is run. Run away and escape from the perpetrator. Else, if it is a residential area like here where people can easily spot them or come in to rescue, they shout and scream for help. The person I saw was doing nothing of that sort. If it was really a girl, she was herself attacking the man more than he did to her. It looked like she was trying to hurt the man. She didn'trun, she didn't scream, she didn't shout for help. It didn't seem at all like an assault on her."