Brutal Read Free

this animal. Five minutes was what it took for the school security team to break the door and get in. In those five terrible minutes, he stabbed about nineteen students – some dying on the spot, some dying later in hospital. Only a few survived.
    Eyewitnesses said that Nitin’s eyes looked scary and full of nightmarish rage. Later on, he became violent even with his inmates in the police lock-up. Hard to control like a rabid pit bull, he injured five inmates and four police constables when they tried to tame him. That night, his inmates beat him up with a vengeance, sending him into a coma. He was in the hospital for about three weeks, oblivious to the fact that the whole country was baying for his blood. The judiciary began the proceedings against him only when he was released from the hospital a couple of weeks later.
    The police had a pretty straightforward case against Nitin Tomar. There was no way he could escape from the charges of manslaughter, attempt to murder and carrying a weapon with the intention of harm. The prosecution had even lined up a battery of special experts to thwart any attempts at an insanity plea. They wanted a noose around the sociopath’s neck, at any cost.
    As Prakash waded through the sea of protestors, he could empathize with their cause. A teacher as a demon was the last thing society wanted. Nitin Tomar deserved to be purged.
    He, followed by Dilip, finally reached the crowd of journalists huddled up beside the entry gate of the compound. He felt somewhat better getting immersed in his community. Good or bad, he didn’t know, but this was his world.
    He looked around, but felt awkward due to the glances other journalists cast at him. Some were surprised, some sympathetic and some damn serious, as if thanking God that they were not in his place. Just ignore them, he muttered to himself.
    His face brightened when he saw a few known faces he encountered in almost every assignment. The most familiar face among them was of a fair, beautiful woman with long wavy hair. She was wearing a short, Nehru-collared kurta over jeans trousers. Seema Sharma. She came towards him as soon as their eyes met.
    “So happy to have you back,” she said with a big smile. “For once, I thought I would never see you in the media again.”
    Prakash grinned. “I am still recovering.”
    “You will. You will,” she said, squeezing his palm gently. “You’ve been one hell of a fighter throughout your life… and a pretty big prick as a competitor.”
    He laughed. The heaviness in his mind was lifting. Seema always made him feel like that.
    He had a thing for Seema since their days together at Globe News ten years ago. She was the quintessential reporter who had got a gift of the gab as well as an unparalleled courage – talents that propelled her to great heights in her career. She would often venture out into unknown territories all alone for news stories and return unscathed. Her good looks didn’t hurt either. She was tall, had a bright, confident-looking face and a charming nature, which made her a ‘natural’ in the TV news business. She was soon spotted by the best in the business. She chose the opportunity to work with Century News because it was owned by the illustrious business Moghul Anwar Shah, whom she used to admire a lot.
    Prakash was never sure how Seema felt about him. He was a guy with average looks, notwithstanding his fancy hair, which often appealed to the opposite sex. But barring the last few weeks, he knew he looked much better nowadays in his post-thirties than he ever looked in his life.
    Still, he didn’t expect this relationship to grow beyond friendship. Seema was married. To be more correct, she was widowed. She had lost her husband a few years ago in a fog-related car accident. Though she was not in the car, invisible wounds from that incident probably haunted her till now. He recalled how she had gone into acute depression and cut herself off from the world after the tragedy.