Last Five Years

Jithin Ravindran had been the CM of Kerala for five years now. He had just been re-elected to his second consecutive term. Openness had been his platform – about his similarities with people, about his differences such as unapologetically living a more luxurious life than the average malayali with a foreign girlfriend, about adopting new ideas and technology and about giving importance to problems others wouldn’t give importance to, which even led to the simplest of the people within the state feeling heard.

Even though he won his first tenure with overwhelming support from the public due to the sympathy wave after his father’s demise, along with his and his sister’s gutsy moves to publicly call out her husband who was a drug dealer wanting to be the gateway of drugs into the state, Jithin Ravindran constantly had to battle both in the government with public servants and with senior leaders within his party to implement his vision. Within the party, he had full support of his sister, Priya, who managed the senior leaders, such as his late father’s close friend Mahendra Varma on his behalf. For help managing civil servants, police and other institutions, he roped in a mentor of his, Jijo George, a former startup founder, who has been active in promoting the startup scene in Kerala and at a national level. Jijo had handled governmental agencies, during his time founding and running the state’s first Public Private Partnership Technology Business Incubator. 

Priya found favour from some of the younger, zealous party workers, who were stuck as workers in the party for ages. Jijo, in the meantime, had assembled teams of youngsters through initiatives such as the CM Fellowship Program and the CM Digital Army.

Through this, Jithin managed to run the state somewhat stably over a five year period. 

But by the time he had cracked his second term, frustration had reached the boiling point for the senior politicians. They had lost the level of influence they held earlier – Mahendra Varma at his highest point, was the acting CM of the state, when DK Ravindran (DKR) was unwell, and eventually passed away. The cronies behind Varma and Tharayil Raju, the leader of the opposition party, also felt stuck due to stringent rules around quality introduced in various tendering processes. Many civil servants and top police officers who were loyal to these senior politicians also lost their jobs when Jijo forced them to resign as they were not regular at work. There were also a few senior leaders involved directly or indirectly in illegal activities such as smuggling, shady land dealings, hawala, hafta and so on, which were adversely affected.

The Beginning Of The Storm

At the under construction site of Coconut-a-day Builder’s flagship apartment complex, commotion arose as Agneesh, a local goonda, and the site manager and some of the labourers got into an argument. Agneesh had come to the site to demand protection money (hafta) from the builder. The site manager and labourers were against Agneesh because their salaries itself was getting delayed, due to the builder’s financial crunch.

The apartment project was already running slow due to restrictions around noise and pollution that the new CM had introduced. Costs had also increased for the builder due to increased surveillance on illegal sand dredging, borewells and electricity connections – all three that crony builders had depended heavily on. He was also penalized for a shoddy job on building a flyover in Kochi, which eventually had to be demolished and rebuilt – the cost of this was recovered from him. The builder also had an import-export business, which, while running profitably, wasn’t able to bring in hawala money and other contraband into the state as before. 

The builder, Karthikeyan Thampi, happened to enter the site at the time and the groups redirected themselves towards Karthikeyan’s Red Merc.

The builder questioned Agneesh if he can solve cash-flow problems and whether he could help circumvent or bend various rules that this new government had initiated. When Agneesh responds in the negative, Karthikeyan berates him saying that if he can’t offer protection in return, he’s not entitled to any hafta. Agneesh is momentarily enraged, but the builder calms him down and tells him that if he needs to get money, money should flow in for the builder as well, which is not happening as fast as he’d like right now. 

He said that he’ll call with a proposal, to make a lot more money, together and to go in peace for now. With no other option in sight, Agneesh takes the peaceful exit offered to him.

Karthikeyan was a former donor to Jithin’s opposition party. He called and argued with Tharayil Raju, the party head, about how his donations were useless, and that it was not just his money, but money from “above”. Raju mentioned that he’s stuck too, but willing to work out a plan, if the builder is willing to put in more money. Karthikeyan was enraged at this request. Raju reminded him that it’s anyways not Karthikeyan’s own money being used, but money from “above”. “If the people “above” don’t want their entire investment to go to waste, this is the time to act.”

The builder reached out to Anand Sharma, the funder from the north, elaborated his conversation with Tharayil Raju and asked for funds. Surprisingly, the funder agreed.

The Storm

That evening, Agneesh got the call from Karthikeyan, with the plan and the funds. After noting down all the instructions, he sped off in his second hand SUV. Along the way, he picked up a small electric water pump. He stopped at a restaurant by the side of the highway, about 20km outside the city. He took out the pump, found a specific water tanker in the parking area of the restaurant, and handed over the pump to the water tanker’s driver. The driver took the pump, and replaced the pump installed on the tanker with the new one, and gave the older one to Agneesh. After returning back, Agneesh opened the side plates of the pump, to find that it was filled with cash inside. With the first tranche of cash in hand, he was now ready to execute the plan Karthikeyan had tasked him with.

He assembled a team of small-time goons, and got them to start tracking the movements of Jijo’s team members and analyze their routines. 

He also monitored their social media accounts such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, for those who had public profiles, to learn more about their whereabouts. 

He quickly learnt that they caught up at Downtown Bar on Fridays. He then planned his first strike.

That Friday, Jijo and team were hanging out at Downtown, when Utkarsh, who was responsible for coordination with the Revenue and Housing Ministry in the government, headed towards the washroom. In the narrow pathway that led to the washrooms, a woman who had just exited the women’s washroom walked towards him, slapped him and alleged that the guy tried to grope her. Utkarsh was shocked and didn’t know how to respond. He had had one drink too many, and slurred heavily. His broken malayalam speech also indicated that he was an “outsider”. All of these factors combined led to a scuffle, with the bartenders and other onlookers supporting the woman and pushing Utkarsh away, which Utkarsh tried to retaliate to, thus escalating the issue. The woman’s male companion, with whom she had come to the bar, arrived and escalated the scene further. While Jijo and team headed towards the scuffle, noticing the tall, hefty Utkarsh being pushed around, they couldn’t make much sense of the commotion. In one of the pushes that Utkarsh was subjected to, his hand hit against the wall, causing an injury, possibly a fracture on his little finger. With this Jijo intervened, and asked for both sides to maintain calm, as the bar management called for the cops. It was then that Jijo and team were explained about the incident. With no CCTV cameras covering the stretch, there was no direct evidence linking or absolving Utkarsh. The cops arrived at the scene, and since Utkarsh had been injured, the woman and her companion decided it was best to proceed with a complaint against him, to safeguard themselves from repercussions of the assault that caused the injury.

After discussing with Jithin and Priya, what transpired was that the government couldn’t be seen pressurizing the police in any manner. The next morning, Jijo had no choice but to suspend Utkarsh till the investigations played out one way or the other. While Utkarsh was good at his job, his team members weren’t too fond of him due to his workaholic nature. They remained indifferent to the issue and Utkarsh’s arrest.

The wife of a member of Utkarsh’s team, who kept posting on Social Media about how she was fed up with maintenance issues at her home, which her husband kept ignoring, was targeted with ads for a fake loan app. The same evening as the Downtown incident, she used his Aadhar card and took out a loan for the home maintenance. The app asked questions about the purpose of the loan and the extent of the home maintenance work. It then suggested additional work that could be done, and recommended an increased amount for the loan. It showed an interest rate of 7% provided as an introductory offer, which she thought was a bargain deal. Only after she had taken the loan of Rs. Five lakhs did she realize that the interest rate was per month and not per annum. At this, she freaked out, and reached out to her husband in panic.

The next evening, Utkarsh’s team members visited the Minister for Revenue & Housing, a Varma loyalist. The minister questioned them about Utkarsh, how he was like with the team, whether they believe he did it. They repeated the same answers as they had shared in their statements with the cops the previous evening. The minister nudged them to be candid and said that it’s not for the investigation, and that he wanted to actually know what the guy was like. They opened up a bit and spoke about his workaholic nature, while mentioning in passing that he was good at his job as well. The agenda of the meeting was the team’s apprehensions about the tendering processes in a couple of government projects. The minister and the secretary for the ministry (a civil servant) responded aggressively that time and speed are of the essence and not all steps of all processes can be followed to the fullest at all times, and that progress and actual infrastructure building was more important than being technically correct. He also spoke of how this would allow for faster growth of the CM Fellowship and CM Digital Army teams – in terms of headcount, amenities and remuneration, as tax revenues would come in at least two quarters earlier, than if all due process was fully followed. The team members agreed.

Agneesh meanwhile had reached out to ADGP Crime. He was the Head of Crime Branch for Kerala State, and reported directly to the DGP, the head of Kerala Police. He was formerly the head of the Police Academy, but was found to have made misappropriations of funds and dereliction of duty. CM Jithin had then transferred him to the Crime Branch, where he would have no choice but to be on top of things and maintain a decent public profile. This was not something he was fond of, and hated Jithin for it. Agneesh suggested that he publicly but slowly drag some of the cases against Jithin’s team, under the guise of thorough and impartial investigation.

As the wave of opinions and emotions rose in the media over the next few days, another allegation surfaced on Social Media where an NRI retiree claimed that he was being forced to pay bribes to get his building plans approved, as he was looking to build his own house on his ancestral property.

That was the tipping point for Govindan, a self declared truth seeker, who shared his opinions and analyses on the happenings in the state. He posted a video quoting the now viral video of the NRI retiree, saddened by the turn of events. He accepted that he was biased towards Jithin’s vision, but saddened by how his team is playing out, after being good and doing good for one term. He lamented that one term seems to be the limit, even for the good guys, stating that even the good guys in Delhi were able to keep themselves incorrupt only for one term.

In the meantime, Somesh, a junior party worker and a supporter of Priya, was worried about the emerging pattern. He spoke about it to his mentor in the party, Murukeshan, shared his suspicions of sabotage with him. Murukeshan dismissed it saying that the DGP and CM’s Digital Army had enough and more resources to keep such a conspiracy at bay. While Somesh nodded in agreement, he was still not convinced. He decides to investigate the matter himself. He picked up CCTV footage from the bar where the Utkarsh incident occurred. He then checked footage from nearby shops, when he noticed the woman that accused Utkarsh and her companion speaking with Agneesh, a short distance away from the bar. Since Agneesh was a known hooligan, he confirmed his suspicions that something was indeed fishy. He decided to casually speak with Agneesh about what he’d been upto and set up a meeting at an abandoned construction site on the outskirts of the city. Agneesh quickly realized that Somesh was onto him. Words and punches were exchanged, and one such punch pushed Somesh off the ledge and five floors down to his death. Agneesh then fled from the scene.

The next day, Somesh’s body was discovered, and the news got sensationalized. Headlines such as “Return of Goonda Raj”, and “Political violence resurfaces in Kerala”

Karthikeyan was furious at Agneesh as the news got sensationalized, although as a political murder.

The next day, Murukeshan broke down during the funeral and recalled how Somesh had suspected a conspiracy. He headed straight to the airport from the funeral and flew to Mumbai, to meet Stanley Ranaut, the point of contact for Steven Madampally, a close ally of the former head of his party, DKR. Steven was formerly a beloved public figure, respected by the masses and by the bureaucracy and across party lines. However, he left the state mysteriously after installing Jithin as the CM. He urged Stanley to inform Steven that Kerala, his state, is in trouble. 

Over the next few days, calls for CMs resignation continued to rise, his public perception was at an all time low. More allegations of scams and bribes surfaced. While some of these were blamed on some of the ministries and on Jijo’s team, some were blamed directly on the Chief Minister’s Office. 

A few days later, Jijo’s Delhi home was raided by a central agency, in which a fake currency printing setup was uncovered. The agency arrested Jijo in Kerala and flew him to Delhi for further investigations. Allegations also rose that Steven Madampally was behind all of these scams, and that’s the reason why he doesn’t surface.

Mahendra Varma rushed to the Chief Minister’s residence along with senior members of the party, and demanded that Jithin step down, and instead bring the senior leaders in, to lead the cleanup of the mess that the government had become. Jithin was given an ultimatum of 72 hours to make the announcements, in the interest of the party, and his father, DKR’s legacy.

Appalled by the turn of events, Murukeshan flew again to Mumbai, this time with S Padmanabhan, a senior party leader loyal to Priya and Jithin. Padmanabhan informed Stanley of the developments within the party, and that Steven needed to return and help solve the crisis at the earliest. Stanley told Padmanabhan to inform Jithin that he should not bow down to Varma’s gimmicks and that he should stick to his vision.

Agneesh was now running out of cash, which he had sourced from the water pump a few weeks back. He was instructed to carry out a similar trip like before, this time with a spare stepney for a truck. At the pit stop by the highway, the stepney was replaced on one of the trucks, and the older one was loaded into his SUV, which he drove away with.

On reaching home, he opened up the stepney to find it loaded with drugs, and not cash. Enraged, he called up Karthikeyan. Karthikeyan denied any knowledge, but then advised that frequent cash movements were riskier. The amount of drugs he had with him could fund operations for a year, and that he should focus on how he could distribute them quickly and source the funds he needed.

The Return Of The Angel

Satya had spent the past five minutes in a gunfight with the Revenue Intelligence officers and Port Trust police at Navi Mumbai. Over 6 months, he had perfected the routine with smaller quantities of drugs. Although it was a much bigger haul this time, with improved concealing techniques, improved documentation, and the Chief Revenue Intelligence officer on duty being a man on his payroll, nothing should have gone wrong. And yet, a secondary tranche of Revenue Intelligence officers demanded an inspection, as it lay on the truck, ready to move out of the port, disregarding their chief’s approval for the truck’s exit which had led to a ruckus. 

Realizing that an inspection was inevitable, Satya’s survival instincts kicked in. He fatally shot the Chief Revenue Intelligence officer who was to help clear the consignment and a few others before speeding off between India’s largest maze consisting of more than half of the country’s containerized cargo. With 20 drones in the air at all times, there wasn’t really anywhere he could hope to hide. He only needed enough time to communicate to his bosses the fact that the bribed officer had been taken care of, and then destroy his mobile phone. The latter objective was met when a barrage of bullets hit the phone and him. 

As various thoughts ran through his mind, the low hum of the drones above faded away, and two constables checked for signs of life. On confirmation that he was still alive, they lifted him by the shoulders, his legs barely able to support his body’s weight. As he was raising his head up to see a third cop in front of him, a few more bullets went through his body. The constables who held him let his body drop. He was dead before his face touched the ground.

– – –

Fugitive Indian Narcotics Smuggler Shot Dead in US

A suspected narcotics trafficker, sought by Indian authorities, died in a gunfight that occurred on Monday in Bakersfield, California. The deceased, identified as Satish Yadav, was originally from Faridabad. He had absconded to the United States approximately four years prior, using falsified travel documents under the alias Roshan.

Yadav was reportedly a significant figure within organized drug crime circles, operating internationally, initially in Africa before relocating to the US. His methods allegedly involved trafficking narcotics into India via the border with Pakistan. He had previously been connected to a confiscated shipment of illegal substances valued at around 2.5 billion Indian rupees, which prompted him to flee the country.

In a message posted on Facebook, the Zaid Musafir group claimed responsibility for Yadav’s death, stating it was an act of retaliation for his continued drug smuggling into India, including recent activities in the southern regions of the country, despite prior warnings.

– – –

Fatal Agra-Mumbai Expressway Crash Near Palwal Claims Life, Drugs Found

A suspected narcotics transporter hailing from Haryana perished, and another individual sustained critical injuries in a vehicular incident on the Agra-Mumbai Motorway near a location outside Hathin in Palwal district.

The incident took place on a Wednesday evening when their sedan was involved in a collision. The driver, identified as Suraj Bhan from Sirsa, Haryana, was declared dead at the site. A voter ID card belonging to the deceased was recovered, according to Ravi Kant, a Palwal police official, which helped in confirming his identity. The passenger suffered severe trauma and was transported to a medical facility in Gurugram for treatment. Authorities discovered approximately 12 kilograms of poppy straw within the damaged vehicle.

Initial inquiries indicate they were likely moving illicit substances from Rajasthan towards Uttar Pradesh when the crash occurred. A legal case under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act has been registered.

– – –

Steven was on a private jet. In one section of the jet, two hackers were at work, doing hacky stuff. One of them was Apoorva, a former member of a destitute home run by Steven in Kerala. Apoorva shared updates with Steven. She also gave him a briefcase filled with documents he would need. Steven then gave her specific instructions on what to do with her findings, and asked her to give a secure line to his friend in the British intelligence agency MI-zero.

Later that day, Govindan was approached on the Dark Web. He was given evidence about the raid at Jijo’s Delhi residence being a farce, and was advised to reveal it publicly at the earliest. He was also instructed to reach out to an investigative reporter he trusted for an operation.

Steven landed at Cochin airport, and headed to the headquarters of the ruling party. Party supporters were excited to see him and chanted slogans in his support. He publicly declared support to Jithin and Priya, and gave thanks to his mentor, the Late DK Ravindran. He declares that he would clean up the mess, if any, and if there was any conspiracy, that will be brought to light too.

Just then, Govindan posted a video releasing the evidence of how Jijo was set up, and that the fake currency printing setup was planted just hours before the raid.

– – –

Anand Sharma was headed for Global Economic Forum 2025 at Davos on a rented private jet as his jet was undergoing maintenance. On the flight, he passed out and went into a deep sleep. When he woke up, he was informed that they had landed at Davos, and was escorted out of the arrival area and out of the airport, towards the waiting chauffeured car. However, as they were exiting the airport, crowds of protestors had gathered, protesting various issues such as lack of adequate taxation for the rich, social justice, against concentration of power in the hands of few and pollution. Anand was asked to wait at the lounge a little longer, while the cops brought the riot-like situation under control. Just then, Zaid Musafir entered the room, dressed as a local cop. He threatened Anand that if he didn’t stop funding Kerala goons and gave up on drug trafficking, he would be opposed. Sharma responded that he was close with “Delhi” and that was doing it based on instructions from Delhi. He continued that nobody could touch him and that he could expand his operations anywhere he liked, within India. Zaid Musafir then introduced himself as a representative of Khurshid Abraar Gang and shot Anand in the face.

– – –

In the later part of the day, Steven interrogated each of the rogues within Jithin’s camp. He opened the briefcase that was given to him by Apoorva, and produced detailed evidence of their wrongdoings. He gave them no choice but for them to turn themselves in and plead guilty.

– – –

With the sudden turn of events, Agneesh was worried for his future. He didn’t want to get caught with such large quantities of drugs, especially, if Jithin’s government was going to be operating as efficiently as it did over the past five years. He went to Karthikeyan’s office to discuss what the next steps should look like. As the meeting progressed, Govindan arrived at the compound along with his reporter friend, Royters Rony. Rony used a snake cam, which he put through the air conditioning unit at the office to capture the video of the conversation. Govindan live streamed the feed on his Facebook page.

– – –

The next morning Jithin, Priya and Jijo conducted a press conference, in which they claimed their innocence and detailed out the evidence around the conspiracy that played out over the past few weeks. They reinforced the message that unlike the happenings in “Delhi”, they would like to maintain their efficient and incorrupt governance for the second term which was granted to them by the masses, and even for future terms, if people choose to elect them back into power. 

Epilogue

For Sidharth, head of the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB),  the evening had been going exactly as he had planned it. The business conversation had been covered first. The Navi Mumbai Port shootout was no regular attempt to evade tax or smuggle drugs. Satya, who killed a Senior Revenue Intelligence officer, wounded two others and who was eventually shot dead was a close aide of the country’s Home Minister. To make matters worse, the secondary tranche of Revenue Intelligence officials and  “cops” who shot him dead were apparently none of those posted on duty that night. Was getting into one of India’s biggest ports, shooting down someone and walking away a piece of cake? If there were any skeletons in the HM’s closet that could be used against him, and jeopardize India’s internal and foreign policies, Sidharth wanted to get ahead of it and ensure that nobody who had a vested interest played any dirty games.

His agenda for this meeting was to formally kick off the CIB investigation, with Krishna Karle coming on board as the lead investigator at the behest of the country’s Home Minister and the key person being investigated. Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) in the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Navi Mumbai Police, Krishna joined the Indian Police Service (IPS) by leveraging his father Sudhakar Karle’s influence. Formerly a cop and chief of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), his father was now reduced to a bedridden man. An accident on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, one of roughly 70-80 that occurs on an annual basis, had paralyzed the head of one of India’s premier counter-terrorism agencies. Investigations by the NBI and Krishna’s cop counterparts in the Mumbai city’s police force couldn’t find anything unusual. Yet the senior Karle’s change in demeanor, his constant prodding of his son to be an honest cop, and his refusal to talk about the details of the accident had troubled Krishna. To add to his worries, a lot more had happened since then. The NBI was accused of being a spying tool in the hands of the ruling party, thereby questioning his father’s integrity, which later led to it being merged with CIB, being run by Sidharth.

Sidharth had enough reasons to believe that Home Minister Rohan Desai had a variety of personal interests to cater to, which could conflict with the nation’s best interest. He wasn’t happy about being hamstrung about having to involve a cop with no prior experience in investigating high-profile cases, and someone not a member of his agency being brought in. However, he had been fond of Krishna and believed that he was built for more, and figured he could use this opportunity to mentor him while getting to the root of the case.

Megha Bhat was to support Krishna in this investigation. A tech analyst, this was her first case too as an agent. Under normal circumstances, she would’ve been the only agent, while being paired with another tech analyst to assist with the research, hacking, tapping, and anything else that had to do with computers, mobile phones, or electronics. In this case, the tech analyst, Shantanu, a rookie nerd, was to join the team a couple of days later, as he was being recalled from a vacation. Megha would play the role of the tech analyst as well, in the interim.

THE END