Beyond Reality

  Near the end of his training period, every police recruit is consumed by a single concern: his first posting. Each policeman has his own ideas and expectations. Some want to serve in or around their hometowns to be near their families. Some hope to get posted in conflict zones like Naxalite areas, where risk is paralleled only by accolades. And yet, there are others who want ‘cream’ postings where money and influence can be accumulated in little time and in large quantities. In the late 1980s, there was only one destination of choice for ambitious, young policemen: Mumbai. The underworld in Mumbai at the time was flourishing with extortion rackets. Gangsters like Karim Lala, Babu Reshim and Rajan Nair, also known as Bada Rajan, were waging war against each other to establish their supremacy over the city. The Pathan gangs and Dawood Ibrahim were also locked in a violent battle. Blood spilled freely on the Mumbai streets. Contract killings were the order of the day. The citizens w...

  It’s been over five decades India lost its beloved Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri but the mystery surrounding his death is still not resolved. On January 10, 1966, after the Indo-Pak war in 1965, Shastriji visited Tashkent to sign a peace agreement with Pakistani President Ayub Khan. But hours after the meeting he was found dead mysteriously. Reportedly he died of a cardiac arrest but the circumstances seemed extremely suspicious. His family members noted that his face and body had some unnatural blue and white spots and there were cut marks on his abdomen and back of his neck. The Raj Narain Inquiry could not come up with any valid conclusions. Parliament’s library does not have any records of the inquiry stored. Regardless of the reason behind the death, why the reports are missing or destroyed remains a question.Shastriji’s body had blue and white spots and there were cut marks on his abdomen and back of his neck. His family claimed that the blue colour was due to poisonin...