(Four deaths all under similar circumstances: the victims jumping in front of a speeding train or any vehicle. All four were between 28 and 30. Inspector Meenakshi of Payyanur, handling the case, is baffled that the four deaths, all in different towns, have something in common, but she doesn’t know what. A visit to her grandmother’s place opens up a can of worms, where a temple in Ottapalam has been robbed, and the Karyasthan who did that died by harming himself. Everything seemed linked, but Grandma’s theory that the Yakshi was punishing the wrong doers and that she had been locked inside a trunk with the looted jewelry for three years, and the opening of the trunk by authorities who found it has caused the Yakshi to go on a spree punishing the culprits, wouldn’t be accepted by the department. Meenakshi has no option but to close the case as an accident. Now read on…)
Santosh Nair assumed office at the Payyanur police station as chief inspector on the day Meenakshi was about to close the case she was handling.
The middle-aged inspector seemed to be a man of iron will.
His eyes fell on the file. “Is that a pending case?”
“Sir, we are closing the case,” Meenakshi said, handing over the file to him.
“May I know why this file is being closed, and are there any other cases yet to be solved?”
Sub-Inspector Gopalan got two more files, the cases that were being dealt with: one robbery in a jewelry shop, and the other against a drunkard who had battered his wife to death.
Inspector Santosh gestured for Gopalan to leave, but asked Meenakshi to sit. With a calm yet resolute countenance, Santosh looked through the files.
“Why is this case being closed?” He asked.
“These cases seem to be accidental deaths.” Meenakshi felt a lump in her throat. She had lied.
“So, has anyone been arrested for the accidents?”
“It looks like the men jumped to their deaths just like that, with a pattern of behavioral changes at the last moment before leaping to their deaths.”
“Suicide has been ruled out, right?” She meekly nodded.
He smiled. “Are you buying this story as an Inspector?”
Meenakshi felt this was the right time to speak.
“Sir, I have got something to say about these cases. Three more similar cases have been registered at different police stations in different towns, and I see they have closed it as accidents. But…,” Meenakshi hesitated. Inspector Santosh gestured for her to continue. “I think these deaths have got something to do with a theft of the Goddess’s jewelry from the temple at Ottapalam three years before, during the temple festivities.”
She explained to him about her conversation with her grandmother and the involvement of the four men in the theft, along with the Karyasthan, who she believed killed himself because of the Yakshi’s wrath.
“But how did the trunk with the jewelry, and as you believe, the Yakshi, reach some God-forsaken area? Why in the first place was it even hidden, and how was the Yakshi captured, if we go by your narration of the incident?” Inspector Santosh called for records of the theft from the Ottapalam police station.
Yes, there was a theft, and the involvement of the Karyasthan was confirmed, and subsequently his death under weird circumstances was established too. Another record also confirmed that the jewelry was recovered while digging in a particular abandoned area behind a mill, with a Tantrik lock on it.
‘Tantrik Lock…..” Santosh kept repeating, his hands caressing his beard while his brows knit in deep thought.
“Are you sure no more deaths occurring in a similar manner have been reported?”
Meenakshi shook her head.
“Well, then if we do not hurry, it is most possible that another death or deaths under similar circumstances may occur.”
Seeing Meenakshi confused, Inspector Santosh flashed his mobile screen in front of her.
Karyasthan, the supervisor or caretaker, ensures the temple runs smoothly every day. They manage cleanliness, security, event logistics, crowd control, and routine maintenance. Without them, the physical temple would fall into disrepair, but the trustees grant and limit their authority.
“It wasn’t the Karyasthan who decided to steal the jewelry; there is something more to it. The four men whom the Karyasthan must have gathered from the drama troupe to carry out the theft, offering them petty contributions, were mere pawns, but not at the hands of the Karyasthan, but someone else. Someone from a higher authority has staged this drama. When the panic button was struck, and the Yakshi’s wrath was kindled, that person had hired a Tantrik to conceal the Yakshi inside the trunk along with the jewelry. He might have planned to open it with the Tantrik’s help when the matter may have died a natural death.
Meenakshi felt a wave of relief running through her when she found that Inspector Santosh wasn’t ignoring the Yakshi’s involvement in these deaths.
The duo left for Ottapalam to hunt down the Tantriks in that area. There were four, and the first two denied any involvement. When they left the second Tantrik’s house, a man followed them and, once they were at a safe distance, told them that Achutankutti, the Tantrik known for this kind of black magic, was involved.
“Do you have any idea on whose behest he did that?”
The man gulped, swallowed what seemed like a huge lump, and muttered something. Santosh nodded, convinced.
“Can you lead us to his house?”
Inspector Santosh got straight to the point, facing the Tantrik.
“We have got evidence that it was you who bound the Yakshi into the trunk along with the jewelry at the behest of the sub-collector, who orchestrated a disaster during the fireworks in the festival. He did not question the temple committee after the disaster, according to reports. Which means he was corrupt, am I right?” Meenakshi looked on in awe as Santosh simply threw the dice using words judiciously, and it worked. The Tantrik spilled the beans.
Within the next four hours, the Tantrik was made to perform a puja to appease the Yakshi, while Santosh and Meenakshi went to handcuff Sudhir Balan, the sub-collector responsible for this fiasco.