Murder

Arin had always been a good student. He graduated in English from
college. Thereafter he started looking for a job. His father had worked
for the government. He too wanted to serve the government. With this he
was also very fond of animals, birds and trees. He would spend hours
reading about the jungles of Africa and the Amazon forest. He wanted to
do something that kept him close to the flora and fauna. Thus he
decided to become a forest officer. He took the appropriate exams and
cleared them with flying colours . After a lengthy screening process
Arin was posted in Palamau, a huge forest sanctuary. He was the
happiest man in the world.
Arin was given accommodation within forest limits. He married his
childhood sweetheart and set up house with her in the forest department
bungalow. His wife Sonaa was a great wildlife enthusiast too. She took
great interest in her husband's work. Arin's duties included
preservation of all elements of the forest. He had to keep a watch on
poaching, illegal logging and mass deforestation. All this was not
easy. A very meticulous machinery was in place to evade the law. The
forest cover in Palamau was huge and there were many many elephants in
the forest. The international border was close and ivory was said to be
smuggled in huge quantities across it. However, the biggest problem was
logging. The wood found in Palamau was worth it's weight in gold. It
was not only used to create furniture and fancy houses, precious
newsprint was also made from it. As mentioned the forest was huge and
it was difficult to know what was going on in the interiors from the
forest office outside. It was rumoured that some forest service
employees were in cahoots with the cash-rich logging mafia. The mafia
was very modern in it's functioning. They used satellite pictures to
determine suitable logging spots. The area had to be thickly wooded and
near a river or stream. The wood would be transported along the river
and loaded into trucks in places where the forest department's vigil
was not tight enough. Arin and his colleagues had a tough time keeping
track of the logging mafia and curbing it's activities.
Arin had been at Palamau for three years now. He had been transferred
within the forest once. He and Sonaa now had a son Andy. For the past
fifteen days a certain group of loggers was giving the forest
department a lot of trouble. The loggers had attacked an area filled
with sandalwood. The wood was very very precious and the trees had to
saved. Arin who was known to be courageous and upright was asked to
lead the expedition. As Arin's jeep entered a clearing in the forest he
found that his brakes were not responding. With him in the jeep were
three of his officers and two armed forest guards. He was about to tell
the others about the brake failure when something hit the jeep in the
front. The vehicle swerved, hit a tree and stopped. The team was
unhurt. They got down and took out their torches to see what had hit
the jeep. One of the guards was able to recognize the man. He was Allu.
Allu called himself a philanthropist but it was common knowledge that
he was the kingpin of the logging mafia. Under the garb of helping the
deep-forest tribals he looted the forest of it's precious wood.
Very soon the police arrived from the district headquarters and Arin
was arrested. Later a court tried Arin. Arin was awarded a sentence of
fourteen years for the murder of Allu.
The time Arin spent in jail was horrible. He was educated, polished and
quite sure that he had done nothing to kill Allu. Yet all the evidence
pointed towards him. His officers also testified against him. His
fellow prisoners would make fun of him as the 'learned' one. They would
make him fetch and carry. However they respected him too for his
erudition. Finally after fourteen years Arin was free.
He had made friends with a Marine Engineer who had been incarcerated on
drug charges. His case had come up today. Arin decided to attend the
hearing. The courtroom was the same where he had received his sentence.
As witnesses came and went Arin wondered what would happen to his
friend. Suddenly the final witness was called. It was a man of medium
height called Balu. The lawyer cross-examining him showed the court a
passport. He then addressed the judge, 'Sir I have with me Balu's
passport. This says that his name is Allu'. Saying this he went on to
talk about Allu's reputation as a wood smuggler of repute. He mentioned
that Allu had started off in Palamau but now his operations were spread
all over India. Of course there was no evidence of his crimes so he
could never be caught and punished. Arin took a good look at Allu.
Without any doubt this was the person for whose killing he had spent
fourteen years in jail. As the court broke for recess, he ran through
the crowd and pounced on Allu. With all the strength in his body he
pushed his neck down till Allu was dead. As the police rushed in to
catch him, Arin declared , 'Sirs, I have spent 14 years of life in jail
for killing the man I just killed before your eyes. Surely I cannot be
punished for killing the same man twice'. Saying this Arin wiped his
brow and walked into the city outside free as a bird.