"Gifts from the Gulf" continues...

In the aircraft I sat across Aftab, got his handcuffs removed and began to talk to him while Raju
Anadkat sat on the other side of the aisle with DSP MC Sahni The Dubai authorities had given us a
packet of Aftab’s medicines, which included insulin. On learning that he was a fellow-diabetic, my attitude towards him suddenly softened. He was soon at ease and began to narrate the story of his life. I have often experienced that, contrary to popular belief prevalent in the police and elsewhere, most criminals, when spoken to decently, open up faster than when treated in a rough and ready manner. Aftab was no exception. Despite the cataclysmic turn his life had taken that morning, he soon felt at ease and was forthcoming as I continued to talk to him. Our conversation went on all through the flight. He narrated to me the story of his life, which, buttressed with a few facts here and there collected during further investigation and interrogation, went something like what follows.
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Born in 1968 in the Lallapura area of Varanasi, Aftab had a widowed mother, an elder brother
and four sisters. The word Aftab, in Urdu, means the sun. His parents perhaps expected him to
shine bright in life and bring glory to the family. Shine he did as he grew up, except that he
shone in a bad light!

He studied at Benares Hindu University to be a graduate and then joined a course in journalism. But, he soon realized that journalism was not his calling in life as it was crime that fascinated and beckoned him. His elder brother Anwar Ahmed, a part time advocate and journalist, who had already cut his own teeth in crime, introduced Aftab to Dinesh Thakur, a notorious criminal of Varanasi. Thakur saw something special in Aftab and decided to take him under his wings.

To be continued...