Samar huffed. “This Kupwara connection is starting to irk me…” he turned as the door rattled open. There stood Adil, but he was not alone. He had gotten the girl with him. Samar sighed inwardly. He should have tied him up in his office until his drugs wore off. Not too late.
Samar observed the girl beside him. Young, Kashmiri. Fair face with red cheeks. Dark hair. Didn’t dress local, though. Light blue coat, didn't look expensive. A bag on her shoulder.
“It’s Adil’s red lux cozy underwear day!” Noora announced from behind them, making the girl startle. She turned to him, then turned back. And froze.
“Atharva.”
Samar cut his eyes to Atharva, who stood without giving anything away. A rarity. Usually, he was welcoming, even conversational, when somebody walked into a room.
“Nice then, you know thieves Atharva?” Adil hauled her into the room.“Is that how you negotiated my release?”
Samar set the bunch of reports down, needing to stop Adil before he did something crazy. He wasn’t manhandling the girl yet, but it was a thin line.
“What?” Adil demanded.“That hurt. You asked them to keep me. I thought you’d come and fight for me.”
“I also asked them to feed you well.” Atharva finally spoke.
“Before they sacrificed me at the altar of freedom?”
Samar didn't like that they were talking about this in front of a stranger. He eyed the girl. She didn’t look like a reporter. Or a potential member. Enrolment happened at their headquarters in town. Everybody knew it.
She was in Aamir Haider’s estate. Was she his relative?
His blood went cold. And then, began to boil.
“I’m not a thief.” Her voice finally broke free. Samar stared at her. But her eyes were on Atharva. Did they know each other? Or was she just one of his many admirers?
“Says every thief,” Adil retorted.
“Adil!”
Samar cut his eyes to Atharva. He sounded… tense. And suddenly Samar was thrown back to that day years ago. When all of them had been caught between court-martial and military prison. Aamir Haider coming and going as he pleased in his shiny white car with Kashmir’s flag on its hood. When nobody had dared even joke or smile, or pretend to laugh for months. When Atharva had not balanced fights with jokes.
This was that Atharva.
“Mind if I see you in a moment, Samar?”
Atharva’s terse voice pulled him back into the room. Samar tipped his chin, needing to get out and get a hold of himself too.
“I will look at Jammu’s electorate in the meantime,” he muttered, pulled off his specs and walked out of the room, passing the girl. She looked to be Aamir Haider’s daughter’s age. He strode at double the speed, telling himself to kill the panic.
————————————————————
The panic drove him. Pain and fear were not even in the race yet.
Samar bulldozed into the nearest room, which happened to be the Media Room, grabbed the first free computer and typed into Google what he had typed multiple times over multiple platforms.
Aamir haider family
No photographs loaded, none were available, except for one of him and his wife from their youth. Multiple links loaded, each one of archived posts or old news clippings. Wikipedia summarised it all.
Awaami Party co-founder and stalwart pro-Indian politician from Jammu & Kashmir, Aamir Haider was murdered in his home by unidentified men suspected to be from the Haq Force. His wife, Goonj Haider, was found dead in the kitchen while their daughter, Iram Haider, was kidnapped. The case was closed after…
Samar clicked out, remembering the article by heart. His sources had added onto it. Iram Haider had been killed. Chased from her home and killed.
Nobody remained in that family.
His blood was still boiling. Suddenly, he saw nothing in front of him but the empty house of Aamir Haider — no blood, no family, no people left to crush. No daughter or son left to wring the life out of, like Aamir Haider had wrung the life out of all of them. Out of Sia Chaturvedi.
