Three days of agonizing, public searching—plastering photos, begging the media—culminated in a dreaded call. The bodies of a woman and a young girl had been found near the Kolong River bank, far from Nalbari, near a remote bridge abutment.
Amit rushed to the scene. The sight was a blur of police tape, brown water, and the unbearable, unanswerable presence of death. The water had ravaged the bodies; Priti and Riya were almost unrecognizable.
The Official Investigation:
The police were chillingly efficient in their incompetence. "Drowning, likely," S.I. Sengupta declared, examining the bodies cursorily. "The bodies were submerged for seventy-two hours in this monsoon-fed river. Every possible piece of forensic evidence has been completely washed away. There is absolutely no usable evidence of assault or motive. Case closed as accidental death or misadventure."
Amit screamed, a ragged, animal sound of pure despair and rage. He knew the truth of his house, but the river had erased the proof. The legal system, the supposed guardians of truth, had declared his tragedy irrelevant.
The Sipahi's Intervention:
Standing at the edge of the crowd was Subodh Das, a young, low-rank sipahi barely a year into the force. He was horrified, not just by the sight, but by Sengupta's cold efficiency in covering up his own department's initial failure. Subodh had a sister Riya's age.
Driven by conscience, Subodh went to Amit's house late that night. He ignored the front door and focused on the boundary wall Amit had so proudly cemented. He found it: a slight scuff on the cement near the boundary wall, too heavy for a typical footprint, and a distinct, deep scratch on the wall plaster—a heavy metal clasp, or perhaps a large belt buckle, snagging as someone scaled the wall. This was a forced entry, not a misadventure.
Subodh also found a nearly invisible trace—a single, minute scrap of coarse, low-grade jute fiber caught in the splintered wood of the bedroom door frame, far too clean to have been washed by river water. It pointed to the type of sacks carried by local labourers.
He found Amit on the porch, staring at the empty street. "Sir," Subodh whispered, "I am Sipahi Das. I am sorry. The river washed the truth away, but it did not wash away the entrance path."
He handed Amit the scrap of jute and the paper with the names: Ranjit, Debu, Tapan, and Bimal. He explained the link between the belt buckle scratch and the local thugs.
Amit's hand closed around the small piece of jute fiber, crushing it. The anguish gave way to a frightening, absolute clarity. The logic of his vengeance was born: he would find the proof they failed to find, and he would use his hands to enforce the consequence the law refused to deliver.