THE BUTCHER OF BENARES Read online

  ‘Give me the money or I’ll curse you,’ shouted the man, who now seemed to be totally possessed by Kali Mata.

  In this jamboree, a hand caught ‘Kali Mata’ by his throat and banged his head against the nearby wall. The hand caught hold of Ruby and pulled her away from the crowd. No one uttered a word. Ruby, too, was stunned by this act of Hawa Singh.

  The man possessed by Kali Mata lay sprawled in the drain. He somehow got to his feet, picked up his sword and ran away.

  Holding her hand, Hawa Singh led Ruby to Mukti Bhawan. Ruby looked at the dilapidated red-brick building. The bricks were jutting out of the walls. The cement looked like dust as it crumbled and kept falling on the ground. She was apprehensive that the building itself might just fall on them.

  Hawa Singh looked at her and said, ‘Don’t worry, you won’t get moksha that easily. Come on in.’

  He walked inside and she followed him into a room. The first thing she saw was an old man who looked like he’d recently pooped in his pyjamas because he wasn’t wearing any. Fauja Singh was shadow-boxing, standing on the cold cemented floor, dressed only in a kurta, his legs bare and shrivelled. A long line of saliva trickled down from his mouth as he gasped and panted. Hawa Singh picked up a towel and cleaned his father’s mouth.

  ‘Look at me. I can still beat the hell out of many boxers,’ Fauja boasted in an old man’s quavering voice.

  He turned to look at Ruby standing near the door. She was shocked to see the conditions they lived in. There was not even a bed in the room. There was a tattered mattress on the cement floor covered with two blankets, and a dirty pillow with oil marks on it that had turned black. There was no place to sit. It was worse than a prison cell. But then, everyone came here to die. What was the need for luxury, when you were leaving it all behind?

  Fauja Singh laughed suddenly. ‘Finally, you got yourself a girl.’

  He turned towards Ruby and extended a large hand. ‘Myself Fauja Singh, international champion. Boxer.’

  Ruby, smiling, took his hand. ‘Ruby Malik, FBI.’

  Fauja looked amazed. ‘FBI! Isn’t that the American CID? What the hell are you doing with this Hawa Singh?’

  ‘I’m here to assist him on a murder case.’

  Fauja could only understand the word ‘murder’ and he latched onto it. ‘Murder. Are you talking about the murder of that American girl? This Hawa Singh never tells me these interesting things but I read them in the newspaper.’

  Hawa Singh held his father, urging him to rest. Fauja flung off his hand and said, ‘We are talking murder and crime—and you want me to rest! Let me tell you, Ruby, it’s the fortunate ones who get to die in Benares. From here you directly achieve moksha.’

  ‘Enough, you better stop with your shadow-boxing or your heart will give out,’ said Hawa Singh.

  ‘Don’t give me all this love and care. I’m going for my final rest. The gods are waiting for me, but I’m going to keep them waiting. Tell me, Ruby, do you believe in rebirth?’

  She was taken aback by the abrupt question and said, ‘I’ve never really thought about it.’

  Fauja spoke like an excited child, ‘I know for sure that there is rebirth. We all are caught in this process of reincarnation till we expend all our karmas and mingle with the One Source, God.’

  Hawa Singh handed him a few pills with a glass of water. Fauja was about to take the pills but threw them away suddenly, shouting, ‘What are these medicines for? I have come to Benares to achieve moksha and give away this body. You are trying to take away my Godliness.’

  Ruby was quiet, looking uncomfortable at being caught in an argument between father and son.

  Fauja realized it and said, ‘Ruby, there is no need to feel awkward. This boy is like this only. I’m the one worried about him, more than he about me. He is like a kid. When I’m gone, please take care of him. Or take him with you to your American CID.’

  ‘Enough, champion, it’s getting late. It’s time for you to eat something,’ said Hawa Singh.

  ‘I have ordered some hot chhole-bhature. I am not going to eat the food of these dead people. Remember, I’m not here to die like them. I’m here to achieve moksha. Now go and call your mother to prepare some tea for the guest.’

  These were the moments that brought tears to Hawa Singh’s eyes. In his ramblings, Fauja would often call upon his dead wife, believing her to have gone out to buy vegetables, or in the kitchen, cooking, or knitting on the terrace.

  It was the shrill tone of his cell phone that distracted Hawa Singh from an emotional moment.

  It was Neeraj Thakur, the SSP. ‘The Naga sadhus and the Aghoris are about to battle each other,’ he shouted. ‘I want you here right now.’

  Hawa Singh couldn’t hear anything further as the voice crackled over his old and broken handset. He had held it together with cellotape. He had never been tech-friendly.

  But there was one word he heard clearly.

  Murder.

  CHAPTER 6

  It was eight at night. Dark water. Black sky. Temperature 1 degree celsius. Windy.

  The hundreds of Naga sadhus led by Baba Ramtirath, and armed with tridents and swords, stood chanting, ‘Om Namo Narayana! Har Har Mahadev!’ In front of them on the same bank of the Ganges stood another group of sadhus, the Aghoris, also armed with tridents, axes, hatchets and clubs. They carried torches of wood picked up from the burning pyres.

  In between them lay the body of Tailanga Swami, Mahaguru, or the leader of the Aghoris. His head had been struck off and lay a few feet from the body on the blood-stained sand. There was an axe with blood on the blade next to the body. It had probably been the weapon that killed him.

  The Aghoris blamed the Naga sadhus for the murder of their guru. The Nagas refused to hear them out. The two groups of mystics stood on the bank of the river sacred to them both, ready to kill each other.

  A few paunchy policemen tried to diffuse the tension. They had flood-lit the area.

  The SSP was trying to get reinforcements in case the situation spiralled out of control.

  He was already under the pressure of the American woman’s presence in his team, and now they had another murder to look into. Neeraj Thakur, the upholder of law and order in the city, was tremendously worried. There would be a lot of questions from the political circles and he’d have to produce results or be ready to be axed.

  A group of media persons with cameras stood at a distance from the war zone, illuminating the entire battlefield with their flashbulbs. They waited for the moment when they would be allowed to take pictures of the dead Aghori Baba. It would make for an exciting front-page display. The smell of blood had brought the hounds out.

  Baba Ramtirath stood at the head of his followers, calling out, ‘We would never even touch these Aghoris who call themselves the descendents of Lord Shiva. They are nothing more than roadside tantriks.’

  The rage among the Aghoris was growing. No one dared insult them. They were the custodians of Benares, of life and death. They are known for their extreme and outlandish violations of typical Indian and other social mores. Their unorthodox, taboo rituals have caused many mainstream Hindus to condemn them as non-Hindu.

  They are known to engage in post-mortem ritual cannibalism, residing in cremation grounds, and taking part in tantric sexual rituals. They smear cremation ashes on their bodies, and have been known to use skulls from human corpses for crafting bowls. They either go naked or wear the shroud of a corpse.

  Though both Naga sadhus and Aghoris are devotees of Lord Shiva, the Nagas hold the latter in contempt due to the rituals they engage in.

  The SSP spoke to them all, trying to keep his nervousness and stress in check, ‘We understand your emotions but this is a murder case. Please let the police do their work. We assure you we’ll soon catch the killer.’

  The Aghoris refused to budge an inch from their ground. ‘Blood will be spilt right now. Our guru has been killed and these Nagas are responsible for it. Since the time they have arri
ved in Kashi, things have gone wrong. They are an evil breed and need to be cast out from our holy land.’

  The Nagas shouted back, ‘Let us see who can move us out of Benares. This is the land of Shiva and we are the true devotees, not these Aghoris who live in cremation grounds and eat half-burnt corpses.’

  Tailanga Swami commanded great reverence from the local population. He was known for his tantric strength and was supposed to possess miraculous healing powers gained through intense eremitic rites and practices of renunciation and tapasya.

  He was the only one in the entire history of Benares who performed worship of Shiva at the Kashi Vishwanath temple using his own filth.

  He said, ‘Dirt is as much part of the Universal Soul as roses, holy water, incense and flowers.’

  The priest who saw Tailanga Swami indulging in such an act had slapped him. Later, the priest was mysteriously found dead outside the temple. After the cremation, Tailanga Swami and his group of Aghori sadhus feasted on the priest’s half-burnt body.

  ‘The dead and the living are all one. By eating him we become one with him,’ Tailanga Swami had stated.

  Aghoris believe that up to seven human murders are forgivable. There have been instances of human sacrifice, but human sacrifices did not count as murders.

  The greatest of all Aghoris, the most powerful tantric, the man supposed to cure diseases and bring life to the dead, had been killed. No powerful mantras or tantras—just one powerful stroke of an axe.

  Hawa Singh and Ruby hurried to the spot, to see the warring clans standing in all preparedness to battle it out. Ruby had never seen something so extraordinary—an army of men with phalluses dangling for all to see. She turned her face away.

  ‘These Aghoris have no right to even take Lord Shiva’s name. They are the ones who need to be thrown out of Kashi,’ announced an angry Baba Ramtirath.

  ‘This Kashi has been our home for hundreds of years. Why don’t you go back to your mountains and hide in those caves? Don’t forget Kashi was founded by Lord Shiva and we are His only true followers,’ cried out Neelambar Nath, the second-in-command of the Aghoris.

  The Nagas gave a war cry that shook all of Benares—‘Har Har Mahadev!’

  Hawa Singh knew that the situation needed to be diffused. He snatched a rifle from one of the constables and rushed right in amidst the two groups. He pointed the rifle up in the air and fired two shots.

  A deathly silence filled the air.

  Hawa Singh shouted at the top of his voice, ‘This Benares doesn’t belong to you, it belongs to the people. You have no right to disrupt the harmony of this holy land that you all are so proud of. I want all of you to lay down your weapons now.’

  The SSP was shaking with nervousness. What was Hawa Singh up to?

  Hawa Singh saw no one had put down their tridents, axes or clubs. For them they were not weapons. They were an extension of their bodies.

  Hawa Singh almost stepped on the patch of bloody sand surrounding the body, and quickly withdrew. A shiver ran through his body as he looked upon what he feared to see—a headless body.

  Ruby couldn’t bear to look at the ghastly spectacle. Hawa Singh took a few deep breaths and turned to the SSP. ‘Yes, we have another murder here. It’s Tailanga Swami, the Aghori guru,’ said Neeraj.

  The very thought of murder filled Hawa Singh with deep sorrow, because the implication was that such heinous acts of crimes would never stop. More and more violent crimes dominated public life. Society was moving towards an ugly darkness that had changed the face of the friendly neighbour, the friend, the kinsman.

  Newspapers and television channels were full of stories of violence. Crime today was selling like sex. People seemed to derive a secret satisfaction from the thought: ‘At least, I’m safe.’ Being safe was being alive.

  Hawa Singh looked at the Aghoris crowding close to the headless corpse and shouted, ‘Get back! No one will come close to the body.’

  Neelambar Nath of the Aghoris stepped forward, calling out, ‘We want to claim the body of our guru, and would like the police to keep out of our affairs.’ He called his men to pick up the corpse of Tailanga Swami.

  Hawa Singh raised the rifle, pointed at the group of Aghoris armed with tridents and axes, and shouted at full volume, ‘Listen to me very carefully! The body needs to be taken for post-mortem. We are here to help you out and catch the killer.’

  ‘Our guru’s body will not be cut open for any reason!’ roared back Neelambar Nath. ‘We have our own means of tantra-mantra and we’ll make sure the killer dies a painful death!’

  The SSP was shaking with the knowledge that it was almost impossible to argue and to make the Aghoris comply with the law of the land.

  Hawa Singh stepped up close to Neelambar Nath, looked him in the eye and said, ‘Do not interfere with police work. If I have to shoot you all, I will. The police will take away the body. You do your work and let us do ours.’

  He then turned towards the Naga sadhus and looked at Baba Ramtirath questioningly.

  ‘Just to tell you, officer, a Naga sadhu doesn’t use an axe,’ said Ramtirath. ‘The only thing we carry is this trishul. Just look back at those Aghoris, they are the ones who are carrying axes. It could be anyone of them who killed their own guru. It could even be Neelambar Nath himself.’

  ‘Don’t you dare say that again or we’ll cut you to pieces. Our guru was our God!’ cried Neelambar.

  ‘Enough! Now I want you both to step back from here and let the police do their work. I said now!’ commanded Hawa Singh.

  The Nagas and the Aghoris slowly stepped back.

  A forensic team rushed up with a few armed policemen. The SSP was continually giving an update on the situation on the phone to the District Magistrate. For the first time since the danger had escalated, he felt a bit relieved. He didn’t know if anyone else on his force could have handled the sadhus. Only a man who is not afraid of dying would jump into a war zone.

  Ruby and Hawa Singh scrutinized the crime scene with their torches. ‘Most of the blood has been soaked into the sand,’ Ruby observed.

  Hawa Singh was more interested in the axe. He saw it had a heavy wooden handle and hoped to find some fingerprints on it. The blade, too, was heavy. It looked as if it had been sharpened for the kill.

  Ruby pointed to a set of footprints in the sand, calling attention to them. ‘Singh, we have these prints here. They could be of the victim or of the killer.’

  Hawa Singh nodded and indicated them to the forensic team. It was difficult for them to work in the near darkness.

  Ruby sat close to the body. It was lying stomach down in the sand.

  Hawa Singh stepped closer and called out to a medic to turn the body upward. The medic carefully, with gloved hands, did so.

  The Aghoris were chanting mantras and slowly drifting back towards their cremation ground. They had decided to leave the police alone and call on the spirits to guide them to the killer. Only Neelambar Nath remained, keeping an eye on the police and on his dead guru.

  Baba Ramtirath chanted a prayer for the dead and called out to his men to come away.

  Finally, they left the dead alone.

  The hounds were still circling the grounds, in their perpetual thirst for blood.

  ‘These Aghoris live in the cremation ground. It seems that Tailanga Swami came here all alone,’ said Hawa Singh.

  ‘You mean to say that the killer was prepared and waiting for him here?’ asked Ruby.

  Hawa Singh looked at Neelambar. ‘Swamiji was sitting with us in the cremation ground till around 7.30 pm. After that he suddenly got up, saying that he had to meet someone and left,’ said Neelambar Nath.

  ‘The killer himself had called him,’ said Ruby.

  ‘It had to be someone close to him. Someone whom he knew well, trusted and went out alone to meet,’ said Hawa Singh.

  Neelambar was quiet. Hawa Singh asked him, ‘Where were you at that time?’

  ‘You think I killed my own guru? I w
ould have given up my own life any time to keep him alive,’ protested Neelambar.

  ‘Then you will have to answer my question.’

  Neelambar took control of the anger boiling in him. ‘I followed Swamiji for a while, just to be with him. But then he disappeared in the darkness. He used to do that to us. He must have sensed me.’

  ‘That means you were also not with your group in the cremation ground.’

  ‘You can say that, but it doesn’t mean I killed him.’

  ‘We’ll find out.’

  Ruby pointed her torch at the severed head. ‘There is a distance of more than ten feet between the body and the head. The cut shows that the killer used only one stroke to decapitate him. Only a really powerful blow could fling the head that distance.’

  Hawa Singh saw that Neelambar was a lanky, scrawny man—but then, these Aghoris were capable of amazing feats of strength.

  ‘A lot of blood has flowed. Since the killer was standing close to the victim, he must have been drenched. That means his clothes would be heavily stained. Someone must have seen him,’ said Ruby.

  Hawa Singh looked at the sand, the blood, the Ganges, and finally spoke. ‘The killer could have washed himself clean in the river. No one would suspect a man coming out wet from the Ganges. The other possibility is that he crossed the river to the other side.’

  They looked towards the opposite bank. All they saw was darkness.

  Hawa Singh summoned a young local police officer, Gaya Prasad Sharma, and instructed him to talk to people around the nearby ghat, the shops, vendors, beggars, lepers and all, to find out if anyone saw a man carrying an axe coming towards the area. He hoped someone would have seen the killer coming armed to the secluded spot to kill.

  The head of Tailanga Swami was wrapped in opaque plastic by the forensic team. That was a big relief for Ruby. She wouldn’t have to see it again.

  The body was picked up to look for signs underneath it. There was nothing. Only blood.

  Hawa Singh wanted to make sure that this was an, unconnected incident and told the forensics team, ‘Just check if his heart is in place.’