A New Faith: Part 3: Chapter 37

It had been a couple of days since the riot. That night was etched starkly in Sonia’s mind. The gruesome image of Shahid’s charred body was something that she would never forget. That ugly stench of burning flesh and hair mixed with the intoxicating smell of turpentine was still in her nostrils. She had tried showering multiple times every day to get rid of the smell. Maybe it was all in her head. But then, how does one un-see and un-smell something like that?

It is not as if Sonia had never before been on duty during a riot. In Dhaka, as a rookie, she was on crowd control duty numerous times. So much so that at times she felt as if the main job of cops was to keep the crowds in check. Riots were common in Bangladesh. The rising unemployment and chronic food shortages had steadily destabilized the country that just a few years ago had been showing signs of economic success.

The gluttony of the wealthy from all over the world, especially, since the turn of the century had created a huge demand for goods that required a lot of cheap and relatively unskilled labor to produce. Clothes, for example. Bangladesh had seized this opportunity with both hands while others such as India and Pakistan had missed it. The carefully nurtured growth of the textile industry had created a vast number of jobs for both men and women. In a very short period of time the industry grew and grew some more. It raised the incomes across the country and the future seemed bright. 

That is when the pandemic hit and then the war in Europe started. On top of that the economic mismanagement in the west created the recession which was like a kick in the gut of the Bangladeshi garment sector. Inflation made everything expensive from fuel to food. Manufacturers started laying workers off in droves. Unfortunately, at the same time, people in rural areas were forced to abandon their fields as the sea intruded more and more every year. Agriculture was getting decimated. Several cyclones caused unimaginable damage stretching the government’s resources beyond the breaking point. With nowhere else to go, the rural laborers made their way to the cities and towns hoping for something. Anything. 

Of course, the protests had started. Initially, they had been peaceful. But that didn’t last long. The anger and frustration had to find a more suitable outlet. Violence had fit the bill perfectly. In the beginning, it had been aimed at the government and Sonia had spent weeks trying to protect government property. The government - predictably - had decided to deflect it with deadly effects. The religious fundamentalism in the neighboring countries - Myanmar and India, and Pakistan - had provided an easy way to create the conditions where the majority Muslim population of Bangladesh could be turned against the minority Hindus. It had been like magic. Practically, overnight, the government had gone from being the main villain to the champion of the downtrodden. The fever of nationalism had started rising. And then the riots had followed. Rabid mobs of young men had rampaged across the cities. 

It had been quite confusing for a young woman like Sonia. She was a Muslim by birth. But that was all that was religious about her or her family and friends. None of them were practicing Muslims. All they did was celebrate the festivals which for Sonia meant an excuse for eating fantastic food. Suddenly, she had been thrown into the cauldron of religious riots where the Muslims had not only been backed, but actively encouraged by the government, to attack the Hindus and Christians. The Muslims were the majority and the dominant population and ideally, her job should have been to protect the weaker and smaller population. And she had done that as much as she could without getting on the radar of the senior cops who had been most happy toeing the government’s line. But it had really messed her up. 

When she came to Sequoia, she had thought that she had left all that craziness behind. For starters, there was no concept of politics in Sequoia. There were no elections - as in elections that are like popularity contests in the so-called democracies. In Sequoia, being part of the city’s leadership - the city council - happened through a lottery system. Every year, one-third of the council was picked through a random draw. Each person served a three year term and then was permanently excluded from the lottery. Oversight of the city’s operations was the primary function of the council.

Of course, voting did happen. But, it was only for policies. Any resident could collect support from ten percent of the population to register a proposition with the legislative department. Each proposition would consist of four alternative designs and it was mandatory for all residents to vote through a ranked choice mechanism on each registered proposition. But before voting, it was mandatory to study and debate it with others. In fact, a week was allocated for study and debate every year right before voting. An independent court established by the UN and consisting of non-residents served to enforce the laws as enacted by the city. People had just gotten on with this system and so far there hadn’t been any power games.  

But then, it was not some policy that had led to that riot in Sequoia. It had been an old-fashioned religious riot. The riot had happened in the midst of the places of worship. Shahid and his group had explicitly attacked the Hindu temple and the Christian church. The slogans that were shouted had all been religious in nature. While the crowd had dispersed immediately after Shahid’s horrific death, that didn’t mean that the rancor had vanished. Sonia had absolutely no doubt that the grievances were very much festering away out of sight. 

She had her team round up a bunch of the people that had been seen as the natural leaders at the riot. Instead of bringing charges against them, the city council had decided to have a chat with them, both collectively and individually. The conversations had left Sonia quite ambivalent about the future. Correction - she felt more pessimistic than optimistic. Without exception, the bunch had felt remorse about their individual actions and more importantly, the effect of their actions on the crowd. Everyone agreed that violence and rioting was to be avoided. But where they became strangely stubborn was when it came to them taking a public stance on it. 

The tribal instincts that had been dormant for the first five years in Sequoia had been fully awakened. Each individual was vehemently pointing fingers at the others. The frustrating whataboutery had also reared its ugly head. No one wanted to be the one to unilaterally step back. They wanted others to do so first.

In any case, Sonia’s main takeaway from last week was that she really needed to get those murders solved. It was crystal clear to her that the root cause of this growing instability were the two murders. It had all started there. They had to find the killers and bring them to justice as soon as possible. Then there was a chance that they could bring in calm. At least for the moment. Not that the evil specter of tribal identities would go away because of that, but at least the near-term rioting and outright violence could be quelled. And the future of Sequoia could be secured. Her future in Sequoia would be safe.

#####

The next day, Sonia found herself again at Kaija’s home.  They were waiting for Rachel and Camille to show up for the video call. Kaija had not been anywhere near the major riot. However, she had seen and heard enough about it to have a reasonably good idea of what had gone down. Neither she nor Sonia were surprised to see Rachel’s request for another call. 

On the dot, the video crackled as Camille dialed in and a few moments later so did Rachel. Camille had a grim expression. Without waiting for a cursory greeting, Rachel exclaimed in agony, “what the fuck just happened Sonia? I mean… we just talked about it a few days ago. Kaija gave that speech at UN which - I have to say - was as well received as I had hoped for. It had certainly dampened the talk of chaos at Sequoia. The plutes had gone silent since the speech. Until now… that is.”

Sonia was absolutely dismayed and Kaija looked worried. 

Rachel was not yet done with her venting, “I got another call from our friendly investor. The gloves are going to come off soon. The plutes have started chattering again. But before we get to that… what the hell happened? Am I getting this right? Another murder? And a full-blown riot? A public self-immolation? How bad are things? I really need to know the details if I am going to have a chance to tamp down on whatever is brewing at the UN.”

Sonia was shaking her head vigorously as Rachel was speaking.

“Okay… let me clarify what happened. The fourth death was a genuine accident. One of my staff, in fact, witnessed it. An unfortunate individual was crushed under a stack of crates that fell down because they had not been tied properly. It just so happened that the guy who died was a Muslim and the guy who was driving the truck with the crates was Jewish. It became far worse than what it was purely because the guy who died happened to be talking with Shahid, who accidentally immolated himself later that evening during the riot.”

Sonia was speaking fast and she had to pause to catch her breath.

“The riot - well - we don’t yet know the how of it. Somehow it got going within a couple of hours as the news of the accident spread through the city. We are not yet sure who organized it or if it was entirely spontaneous.

Shahid’s death at the riot was just plain unfortunate. He was one of the groups who had brought the paint thinner to the riot in order to set fire to the church and the temple. He got carried away and tripped while he was about to hurl those burning buckets on the crowd and ended up killing himself. I was there and so were thousands who saw what happened.

Bottom-line, both were unfortunate deaths. Nobody else was even seriously injured. The damage to the church and the temple was trivial. Nothing that a paint-job wouldn’t fix.

The rioting, though, worries me. It came together quite rapidly. We hardly had any time to mobilize. If not for my brave colleague - Alia - the riot could have turned far worse than it was. She managed to really impose some order on the rioters before Shahid and his buddies showed up with those Molotov cocktails. Fuckers!”

Sonia stopped talking. Camille spoke up instantly, “ohh… this is not the end by a long shot. The rioters are gonna come back again and they will escalate. I guarantee that! That is just how the mobs behave. You’ve got to find the murderers. If I am not wrong, four Muslim guys have died so far and a cop. Plus there has been damage, however superficial, to a church and a temple. This is bound to escalate.”

They all stared at each other. They didn’t know what to say or do.

Rachel queried, “any updates on the murder investigations?”

Sonia shook her head. 

“Well - if Camille’s prediction turns out to be accurate - then we are in trouble. The plutes are going to take full advantage if the situation escalates. In fact, I won’t be surprised if they try to add fuel to it. They are itching to invoke the poison pill clause in the contract. You can bet that they are already making the calls to their flunkies and lackeys spread around the various governments. Sonia - you have to get those murders solved. Soon! And while you are doing that, you need to also try and see if you can head off any riots. I don’t know how you are going to do that. But you are going to have to figure it out ASAP.”

“Else… “ she trailed off. There was no need to spell out the danger to Sequoia all over again.  

#####

Couple of days later, Sonia saw Alia walk into the office and called out. She wanted to get an update on the investigation. 

“Got a minute?”

“Sure, boss,” Alia stopped mid-stride and answered cautiously.

Sonia noticed the hesitation. She also sensed the wariness in Alia’s overall manner. Come to think of it, there was something off about Alia ever since the riot. Sonia couldn’t really put a finger on what was different, but there was something going on. Well, now was the time to find out. 

“How are you doing?”

“Umm… okay. Why?”

“You seem a bit… what’s the word I am looking for… subdued?”

“I am fine, boss. I am. Really!”

“O-k-a-y. So where are things at?” Sonia decided to drop the interrogation for the moment.

“No new evidence so far. But I have a new theory about Nadeem’s murder.”

“Really!” Sonia’s eyebrows shot up.

“I mean - it is a possibility that I had not considered before. Now I am thinking about it.”

“Go on. Don’t keep me in suspense.”

“Well… what if Shahid was involved in Nadeem’s murder?”

“What do you mean involved? Do you think that he killed Nadeem?”

“It is possible, isn’t it?”

“I thought… that Shahid was Nadeem’s friend. Okay - maybe friend is stretching it a bit. Anyway - what is the motive?”

“Maybe it is the religious angle after all. Shahid may have killed Nadeem because of that.”

“You are not making any sense!”

Alia’s face had taken on a reddish hue now. She seemed uncomfortable.

“Maybe Nadeem was not a good Muslim and Shahid punished him because of that.”

“Where is this coming from, Alia?” Sonia was trying to keep her puzzlement in check. 

Alia tried again, even more tentatively than before, if that was possible.

“Tozi has been working with the Interpol experts on this. They used some image recognition algorithms to collate pictures from the various social media platforms. Apparently, it takes a while to troll through the gazillion images that exist on the internet. There weren’t many matches, for starters. And even those that got short-listed by their computer didn’t seem to be useful. But they did get a few robust matches. They tried all the tricks and are reasonably confident that the person in those short-listed matches is Nadeem.”

“Can you cut to the chase, please?”

“Yes… I am getting to it.”

This was very unusual, thought Sonia. Alia was always succinct. In fact, it was annoying that she would get to the point without explaining how she got to it, leaving the listener quite at sea. And here, she was spending an inordinate amount of time - by Alia’s standards, that is - in giving background? Something’s wrong with her. Definitely!

“A couple of pictures show Nadeem in close contact with another young man.”

“Am I being thick, Alia? What the hell are you getting at? 

What’s going on with you! No really! This is so unlike you,” Sonia’s exasperation finally burst out in the open.

“Tozi thinks that Nadeem might have been gay!” 

Alia continued hurriedly, before Sonia built up steam. 

“Shahid seemed to have been a very conservative sort of Muslim. It is possible that Nadeem was gay and that he, maybe, made a pass at Shahid and Shahid just lost it and killed him.

There is some corroboration on that front. Remember one of Nadeem’s colleague - Vidya? The one who works at the concert hall? She had a crush on Nadeem and had tried multiple times to get Nadeem to go out with her. But it seemed that he had not reciprocated. Vidya was confused, wondering whether she was doing something wrong or Nadeem was just not interested in her. I think - it was because Nadeem was gay. And because he was such a loner, no one knew about it.”

Sonia simmered down a bit as she took in this new information.

“Fair enough. Do we have any actual evidence about this?”

“Unfortunately, this theory is all about the motive. We have nothing on the means and opportunity. And now that Shahid is dead, we can’t get a confession.”

“How confident are you about this theory? Like… on a scale of one to ten?”

“Maybe a four…”

“Hmm… that may not be sufficient enough to convince everyone.”

“What about Qasim? Did Tozi’s magical powers find anything else on him?”

“Not much. Qasim was from Lebanon. But we haven’t found any pictures of him from there.”

“Santosh? Any luck in figuring out who killed him?”

“The speech recognition and the image recognition algorithms give a high probability of it being Shahid. I think, Tozi said that the software was about 77% confident. The distortion in the sound was too high. The killer wore loose clothing, so picking out the body shape was hard. And the killer was mostly stationary - so not much for the software to work with in terms of the motion. That probability was after triangulating all three of those key elements together. Again - Shahid is dead. So we are stuck.

I guess - if we had found something to link Shahid to Qasim and a motive for him to kill Qasim, then we could lay this all at Shahid’s feet and be done with the whole situation. That would certainly take the wind out of this whole righteousness that so many men seemed to have suddenly been infected with.”

Sonia sighed loudly.

“Okay - this is probably as good as it gets. Go ahead and write this up while I think about it some more. Good work - Alia!”

“Uhh… yes boss!” 

“And we still need to talk about what is bothering you. I know, you have been working hard along with everyone else. And it has been a long haul. What is it now - two months straight - since Qasim’s death? We all need a break.”

“I am okay, boss. Of course, a break would be nice. But I don’t need it. Maybe I am just a bit under the weather. We are getting close to winter and I probably need time to adjust to the chill.”

Sonia nodded her head, indicating that Alia was free to go. 

That last bit bothered Sonia. That was not like Alia. That girl was all about professionalism. She had always made damn sure that she didn’t bring any of her personal stuff to work. Including anything bothering her physically. If she was sick, she would have just told her and taken a day off. She wouldn’t be showing up to work this way. 

Nope - something was not right with Alia. Sonia decided to keep an eye on her. Not overtly. And she also decided to cross-check Alia’s work with the rest of the team and the evidence collected so far. Again - not overtly. She didn’t want to leave any impression on the team that would undermine Alia’s position. Something just didn’t sit well with her. She almost felt as if Alia was hiding something from her. Being sneaky? That word didn’t usually fit Alia. But it sprang up in Sonia’s mind unbidden.