no man's land || kgf (slow updates)

fifteen

note- refer to chapter 12 to catch up

1978
ANDHRA PRADESH

The atmosphere was tense as inspector Narasimha Rao and CBI officer, Kanneganti Raghavan sat opposite to each other. Everybody else present in the room didn't even dare to breathe. 

Sub Inspector Ramaiah felt a bead of sweat roll down his temple as he held back a gulp.

 "Raghavan." Inspector Narasimha said as he leaned forward, "I don't like this just as much as you do. In fact, I hate this even more. But I don't have a choice. All I'm asking is to be included in the investigation."

Officer Raghavan breathed in and replied, "Rao, there's a lot of procedures to undergo and that in itself will take a month. I doubt we have enough time for- " he was cut off by Inspector Narasimha placing a bundle of paper work. 

Officer Raghavan pulled it towards him and went through it in disbelief. And finally with a defeated sigh and a disgruntled look, he said, "very well then, welcome to the team Mr. Narasimha Rao and Mr. Ramaiah Analla." 

Narasimha Rao donned a winner's smile as he took back the papers and laid out the case file. Officer rRaghavan held out his hand and one of his team members placed a fat stack of papers and files onto the table in front of them. 

"Fifteen years worth of research." He smacked the stack and continued, "there's more in the archives, but for now, this is all we need." Sub Inspector Ramaiah's eyes nearly popped out at that. This wasn't all?

 Inspector Narasimha pulled it towards him and lifted a corner of the stack. Some were even dated back to '63. 

"So, tell me Mr. Rao, what have you heard of KGF?" Inspector Narasimha took a minute to think and replied, "those gold mines in Karnataka na?" 

Officer Raghavan nodded and Inspector Narasimha continued, "to be honest, I never really thought much about it as it was way out of my jurisdiction. All I know is that it's a gold mine. But how is that related to this?" He asked looking at the case file and then at Officer Raghavan. 

"It's directly related inspector. Have you heard of the gold mafia?" Inspector Narasimha leaned closer in response, his curiosity sparking. 

"It's a world wide criminal organization. We don't know who rules it. We don't know how many people are involved. We don't even know where the main headquarters is. We know absolutely nothing. Our link with that organization, is KGF. The Indian branch of the mafia. They mine gold from here and illegally smuggle it across oceans. We don't know when it leaves and where it reaches. But it's happening right under our noses." 

"What?!" inspector narasimha asked shocked and quite enraged, "if that's the case why don't you report to the government? Surely they can take care of it." 

Officer Raghavan chuckled, "Oh Narasimha," he said in a patronizing tone, "do you really think that this smuggling has been happening for 20 years now without the government's involvement? He's sitting right at the head and controlling every thing." 

"He?" 

"Garuda." Inspector Narasimha looked even more confused, "Garuda? How is he related to this?" 

Officer Raghavan smirked seeing his frazzled state, "he's the legal owner of KGF." He took out a file from between the stack and handed it to him. They were legal documents, cementing the ownership of the mines under Garuda's name. 

"From the outside everything looks clean and legal but nothing is as it looks like. All of the labour are forcefully held captive there. Nobody even knows what happens to anyone who steps inside KGF." 

Inspector Narasimha scoffed, "please officer, you sound way too dramatic." 

Hearing his casual and offhanded comment, Officer raghavan's anger spiked as he took out another bundle of papers from the stack. 

"Do you know what this is?!" he waved the bundle and threw it at the inspector, "a complete list of ten thousand people who've gone missing in the past five years in Karnataka alone. And we only have this information because of missing complaints. God knows how many more people are missing!" He smacked the table with both his palms making everyone in the room flinch. 

"Inspector Raghavan, I have been on this case for the past ten years, don't tell me what to do and what not to. If you cannot cooperate, leave immediately." He said glowering. 

At this point, inspector Narasimha truly felt the urge to apologize because this was a grave matter and it was very insensitive of him to say that, but there was no way he was going to let this officer walk over his ego so he sat in his place firmly looking at officer Raghavan with a defiant look. 

Taking the hint officer Raghavan sat back in his place, exhaled, had a cup of water and continued. 

"Coming back to your case and how it could possibly be connected... " He trailed off as he reached behind and took another stack of files. "These are murder cases. Five of them. Find anything similar?" He asked with a tone of challenge.

 Inspector Narasimha went through it all, one by one, his eyebrows scrunching as he flipped through the yellowing pages. "All unidentified. All abandoned on state borders and none of the bodies have been claimed." 

"And," officer Raghavan added switching on the old projector, "in these five cases, the skin near their ankle has been scraped off. Some of them have faint remainders of a tattoo which looks like numbers. Except in your case, they've made a mistake. They forgot to scrape of the tattoo. And that symbol right there?" He said pointing at an enlarged picture of meghna's ankle tattoo, "it's a brand. And not an Indian one. It has letters in some other language in it. So we've sent it to the interpol and we haven't received a response yet." 

"How is this related to this KGF and this gold mafia and all?" Sub inspector Ramaiah asked, his mouth slightly open in shock. 

"Last month, we got this case file from Bangalore. A man who had stayed in this hotel, left behind a gold brick. Obviously we found it suspicious. So we examined it and we found this exact same seal on it's edges. We tried tracing down the man but he was gone without a trace and even the ID he had provided for check in was fake." He paused for a moment and then said, "so, Mr. Narasimha, do you have what it takes to crack this case?"