Chapter 18 Uncovering the Conspiracy

I searched for a way inside his office to get the CCTV footage but as Ishita had told me there was a possibility of any and all evidence being deleted and so in order to gain access to the footage as well as recover the deleted footage we needed a hacker and it was lucky for me that Ishita knew one such hacker.

We were at Ishita’s place and waiting for the hacker. The doorbell rang and I opened it, only to see a twenty-one year old girl standing in front of me. For a minute I couldn’t believe she was a hacker, I couldn’t believe that someone as young as her could be the hacker. .

“Simran how are you?” Ishita welcomed her. I was confirmed now, she was the one Ishita mentioned.

In no time, she began her work. She asked for a cup of coffee from Ishita, she explained that coffee helps her work better.

“Ishita, is it Union Bank, Malviya Nagar, 17th May,” she asked Ishita.

“Yes,” I said before Ishita could reply.

I kept staring at the girl and her laptop’s screen trying to figure out what she was doing, the girl noticing me, signaled me to give her some privacy and seemed kinda angry. Ishita came with her which she gulped in one go and continued to concentrate on her work. And, after 2-3 minutes had passed.

“We are in,” she proclaimed. I was utterly impressed with her skills. I came close to the laptop and saw nine cameras on screen. I was looking for the one that was the closest to Utkarsh’s desk. I found it on the top right corner and asked her to zoom in. Utkarsh’s backpack and laptop were clearly visible. She changed the time setting, from evening drop seven to seven-thirty. She played the video from the archives.

The first ten minutes went by with no one near Utkarsh’s desk. He looked kind of stressed and was checking his phone after every few minutes. Ten minutes passed, and then his boss came up to his desk. He handed him a note, something was written on it. It might have been the account numbers. Utkarsh kept the note under the laptop. Utkarsh got a call and left his desk. With the note left there so we zoomed in closer and suddenly we saw someone walk by and it happened in a split second. He went in and out like a flash. I was a bit surprised by who the person was. Since his face was not visible. I asked Simran to zoom in more.

“The pixels will break,” she said

“Let it be just zoom in,” I got agitated and said,

She moved the mouse closer as she play the video in slow motion. We saw a tall, sturdy man, changing the note that was being kept beneath the laptop area. His back was visible as he got out. Before we could see him correctly, the laptop screen went black.

“What happened,” I said, irritated.

Simran was checking on her laptop; she rewinds the video a bit. But still couldn’t see the video. On the screen, it started showing that the video unavailable.

“I think someone deleted the video,” She told us. I immediately got frustrated and my head filled with regret as I felt that we lost our biggest evidence in this case. Even though the girl was still trying I still couldn’t calm down. Ishita had come over to me to comforted me.

“Avi, don’t worry. We will do something,” she assured me.

“Ishita did you see what happened, that was our only chance but the video got deleted”, my anger was not letting me do anything and instead I was getting emotional.

“Don’t worry guys, I got it covered. I had a screen recording the footage when we were browsing, I saved it,” Simran said in a confident voice. I could see a pen drive in her hands. She wasn’t lying. My heart jumped in excitement. I was felt delighted.

As I went to take the drive, she stopped me and said, “That will cost you some extra bucks,” She smirked. “Tell me how much you need?” I said.

...

We (Ishita and I) watched the video repeatedly. It was cropped to just 2-3 seconds because the original video was deleted by someone. But still this was enough for us to know that Utkarsh was framed. The guy in the video seemed a little familiar to me. I was unable to recall who though. His body structure the way he moves and then that on his back, I instantly remembered who he was, he was without a doubt one of Jaghdheer’s bodyguard, who I had met that day.

“That’s him fuck man, I know this man Fuck,” I said agitated.

“You know him. Who is this person, Avi?” Ishita asked. “Avi, will you tell me who this is?” She asked curiously. “Ishita, this guy happens to be one of Jaghdheer’s

bodyguards. You know him, he is Chhavi’s husband. I don’t know the person’s name. But, I’m sure of it he is the same guy.”

“Fuck”, she said understanding the weight of the situation. My brain recalled some more details, that day when Dilshan was in danger. That day, his bodyguard was not with him. And when I asked him about it, his face went pale. Ishita was with me at that time. I asked her to recall it too.

“Avi, if I am not wrong, Could this person be the one kidnapping of the street boy? What do you think? He might be the same person who was chasing Dilshan when he was saving the kid from the goons,” Ishita said.

“It is possible,” I sighed. We didn’t have the person’s photo. I Googled Jaghdheer’s picture Thinking I might find some pictures of him with his bodyguards. We had to scroll down for it and luckily, we found one. We had to confirm it with Dilshan. I sent him the picture and within seconds, he confirmed it.

I was feeling happy. We had finally cracked the mystery. Utkarsh was innocent. He was framed. And now we had a piece of evidence, against the main culprit no less. I now also knew his name, and along with that, I had my promise with Dilshan. He assured me, that the news will stay hidden until the court proceeding are over. We were now determined. We had finally uncovered the conspiracy.

I was very excited but didn’t let any one of my family know about it, not even to Saanvi. Ishita and I promised to keep it a secret until the court trial were over. I had to keep this a secret from my family as I knew, if even one of them found out about it then it wouldn’t take too long for everybody to know and Jaghdheer to try to tie up all of the loose ends So, I wanted to keep it to myself until we had a talk with Vikas’s Dad.