The drowning murders

 

'Iss laash ka muh ab Dr Salunke hi khulwayega'  ACP Pradyuman said as he looked at the dead body in front of him.

 

The body was discovered on a Monday morning, by two aunties in salwar kameez and Nikes.

 

Inspector Joshi was stoic, every other week there was a drowning at Versova beach. The only question was ‘who’.

 

He handed over this case to the CID hoping to solve these mysterious deaths.

 

The dead person was Sabina. A girl studying in class 14. A total of 3 drowning deaths had happened till now, all of girls who belonged to Sabina's group of runners.

 

Sabina was a fitness and running enthusiast. She along with her 10 friends was a part of Juhu runners group. They used to run every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On Sunday and Monday, they would also swim. Despite being professional swimmers, 2 of her friends died due to drowning. But that did not deter Sabina from continuing her swimming practice.

 

Further investigation by Dr Salunke revealed that Sabina had taken some sleeping pill 15 mins before her death.

 

'Why would she take a sleeping pill before swim? ' ACP wondered.

 

'Maybe someone made her take it ' his assistant Daya said.

 

ACP and his team reached Juhu beach for investigation.

 

'Is ladki ko aapne dekha hain?' Daya asked the chaiwala at the beach

'Nahi, Sir.’

 

He went to each stall at the beach with a photo of Sabina in his hand and asked the same question.

 

He reached the juicewala.

 

"Haan, jaanta hoon main inhe. Ye hamare idhar juice leti thi" he said.

 

"Aur kya jaante ho?”

 

"Last Monday she came to have juice. After that she went for a swim and got drowned. We don't know how a professional swimmer can get drowned like this. 2 of her friends died the same way,” he said.

 

" Who else was here on your stall that day that morning?” ACP asked.

 

" Sabina's group and her coach,” he said.

 

" One more thing Sir. Sabina and her friends who died used to have a special energy drink and her coach used to add some powder to it in the end.

 

“Lets meet the coach, " ACP said.

 

They immediately drove to the coach's house.

 

It was locked.

 

“Daya Darwaza tod do,” ACP said.

 

Daya, ACP and the team searched each nook and corner of the coach’s house to find any evidence.They found a box full of protein powder sachets . Alongside that box was a packet of sleeping pills. They sent the sleeping pills for investigation to Dr Salunke.

 

“Ab, bas coach ko dhoond nikalo” ACP said

 

An update from Freddie from ACPs team revealed that the coach was trying to escape abroad. They stopped him at the airport and he was brought to CID.

 

“Why did you do this? Will you tell or should we make you tell…” ACP said in his trademark style.

 

“Sir, sir . Let me tell you. The story goes back to 6 months ago. Me and my friend Vivek were partners in a business. Vivek wanted to make fast money. He suggested that I get closer to Sabina so that we could get money from her rich dad and put it in business. With time , we got closer and started going on dates quite often. I used to mention my business problems to Sabina and she would quietly get money from her dad. Then one fine day she suddenly stopped getting money. Her friends behaviour towards me also changed. We had an argument once and she mentioned that she’s no more interested in me. My life was going on a downward spiral and the root cause of it was Sabina and her friends who instigated her against me. Hence I decided to kill them. I used to put protein powder in the juice they used to have. On the day of the murder, I put sleeping pills so that they would sleep off while swimming and get drowned.”

 

“Sharam nahi aai tumhe ye karte hue?Chalo ab jail ki hawa khane" ACP said.