“The Return Gift (Arrest and Deportation of Roshan Ansari)” continues…

The following morning her uncle received a call that she had arrived in Mumbai. Her uncle asked her to reach Vashi Bridge where his son would meet her. He would take her to the place where arrangements for her stay had been made. Our team was in no position to reach the rendezvous point in such a short while given the distance between where they were located and Vashi. However, now that she was in Mumbai, it was that much closer for us to monitor her movements; and logistics were that much easier to manage.

Here the police instincts of DSP Shukla came to the fore. He guessed that Roshan’s mother would definitely attempt to meet Roshan. He had seen her (the mother) himself when he had gone to verify Roshan’s Ghatkopar address with a telephone lineman when the operation . Two teams were formed, one located at Ghatkopar and the other at Vashi station. Whenever the Ghatkopar team saw a lady matching her description, they would follow her all the way to Vashi station. However, the team stationed at the only exit point at the station could not spot her. This exercise continued for three to four days with no success.

Meanwhile, Roshan called from her mobile on her brother’s mobile on 2nd May. Her brother was a barely 15-year-old lad. We could ascertain the location of her mobile to be in Mumbra, another thickly populated and congested area, dotted with slums and shanty towns. Mumbra is a part of the Thane Commissionerate neighbouring Mumbai. Searching her or, for that matter, anyone in Mumbra without knowing the exact address was more difficult than looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. We waited for Roshan to make one more false move.

She called her brother’s mobile, already under our observation, the very next day from a public telephone booth. From the call details of her brother’s mobile, we immediately came to know the number of the public booth.

To be continued…