Murder in Bollywood by Shadaab Amjad Khan Read Free Book Online Page B

inside, its colour a lighter shade of blue, with a quality and texture most refined. On unfolding that paper, he discovered that it contained a few lines from Khalil Gibran’s
Tears and Laughter
, written once again in calligraphic style, in Farsi no less, which was a language that Hoshiyar not only read and understood, but also enjoyed and appreciated.
    ‘I was here from the moment of the beginning and here I am still. And I shall remain here until the end of the world, for there is no ending for my grief-stricken being.’ Hoshiyar read out aloud, then glanced at the name of the sender and writer of that note, who had signed off with a flourish at the bottom of that paper. Ali Baba, it read. Ali Baba, the king of thieves, who, unlike his namesake in the story, ruled over a gang of forty master thieves. It was around five years ago that Hoshiyar Khan’s and Ali Baba’s paths had crossed, quite by accident, when the former had inadvertently unearthed the latter’s thieving ring while conducting a top-secret surveillance operation on Mehta and Sons, one of Mumbai’s most famous jewellery stores, which had fallen prey to a daring armed robbery in broad daylight. On tapping the phones of that establishment, along with the cellphones of the powerful Mehta family who owned that place, apart from a host of other such showrooms all over the country, Hoshiyar stumbled upon a clan of highly organized thieves, whose existence was unknown to the authorities until that point. A three-month-long investigation revealed that that particular group was Iranian by nationality and all its members related by blood. It also came to light that they had robbed other leading jewellery stores across the country as well, and in each and every case, their modus operandi was similar and all-too ingenious. They would first choose a high-profile target located in an area with multiple exit points, and subject it to a thorough scrutiny, familiarizing themselves with its ins and outs and nooks and crannies, until they knew that place and everything about it like the back of their hand. Along with this, simultaneously, they would launch their next step, which was to observe minutely, for months on end if necessary, each and every member of the family which owned that jewellery store and was actively involved in its running, including the taking of important business decisions. This exercise was undertaken with the sole purpose of identifying its most opportunistic male member, who would become the gang’s ‘mark’ after which a beautiful female gang member, who was given the alias Morjineh, was assigned to befriend him and get him under her spell. Once this was accomplished, a group of five to six men would ‘hit’ the jewellery store with blinding speed and military precision, making off with its most expensive sets and pieces in a matter of minutes, that too in broad daylight, with each man disappearing through a different exit point. A few weeks later when the dust had settled, the gang’s ‘point man’ would contact the ‘mark’ and offer to sell him back all the jewellery they had stolen at half the market price. This is where Morjineh would come in and influence the ‘mark’ into going for the deal, telling him that he was in a win-win situation, since he could easily separate the gems from the gold, then melt down the latter and fashion it into different designs, while the former could be recut and repolished or simply reused as it is without anyone coming to know that they were the stolen jewels, which would guarantee a full compensation from the insurance company for the theft of his property. She would conclude by saying that not only was this a great opportunity for him to make a whole lot of money at the cost of very little, his respect and importance in the eyes of his family would increase tenfold when he’d present this scheme to them; and since the ‘mark’ by then was head over heels in love with Morjineh, he would