‘How many death threats? And who sent them?’ Mona asked SI Ananth impatiently.
‘Ma’am, there were two threats, each from an anonymous handle created solely for the purpose of sending the email,’ SI Ananth said. ‘The handles are deccandacoits@tormail.com and starvingstaffers@protonmail.com. We can’t identify who they belong to, or where they originated. From the servers, it appears that the first one came from Kyrgyzstan while the other seems to have come from a government office. Obviously, it didn’t.’
‘What do these emails say?’
‘Ma’am, I’ll forward you screenshots of the emails, not the emails themselves. Protocol.’
‘Why would anyone send the HR manager a death threat?’
‘Many emails are from staffers begging for salaries, demanding to know when their statutory dues will be cleared, threatening to go to court over unpaid salaries even after they left the organization. There are emails from general handles not linked to a specific person but from the entire staff at centres like Mumbai or Bengaluru, demanding salaries and threatening to go on a strike. There’s a pattern of angry and despairing emails, of which the anonymous emails would merely appear to be extreme examples.’
‘Send me samples of the emails you’ve gone through,’ Mona said. ‘As screenshots. What about the Reddys’ emails?’
‘The Reddys never said much over email, though they too received similar pleas from distressed staff members,’ SI Ananth said. ‘There are many commercial propositions, too. Vuvuzula Sankatram got emails from politicians wanting their op-eds published. Mostly national party members and also the junior home minister. Velveti Rompy got emails that the others did not, from vendors demanding payments and also from Shrek Fund.’
‘How did the Reddys reply?’
‘None of the Reddys said much besides “fine” or “okay” or “no”,’ SI Ananth said.
Mona had a hunch. ‘Can you go through the email exchanges between Velveti Rompy and Shrek Fund?’
‘Yes, ma’am. Jai Hind,’ he said and ended the call.
‘Should I call the chief financial officer in, ma’am?’ Pavani asked Mona.
‘Damn him,’ Mona replied. ‘Let him wait. Let’s look at the emails. How can we both see them on my phone?’
‘Shall I turn on the TV?’
Mona nodded and proceeded to sync her phone with the TV. The screenshots from SI Ananth had begun arriving. The first one read:
Dear Mr Sai,
This is to inform you that I have not received my salary for six months. We are all going through tough times (COVID-19 for the past three months), but I hope you understand my predicament, too. I have had to go through four COVID-19 lockdowns without any salary. Hence, I humbly request you to acknowledge my email and pay my pending salary at the earliest.
Regards,
Raghunathan
The next one read:
Dear Sai,
I wanted to know about the status of my pending salary, still I am unable to understand. I’ve been told that I’ll be getting my dues, but not a single penny credited to my account.
Despite sending you repeated emails, you haven’t sent the salary slip of July month yet. There is neither any communication on these pending salaries nor any clear statement. I’m going through a tough phase, I am staying in transit, and my savings are getting exhaust.
Please credit my pending salaries on sooner the better policies, and provident funds, too. I am in need of it. My salary is so less, then too you guys are not crediting. I know the company is in tough patch, but then too our boss made us work, and we have been working. Now it’s getting too difficult to manage. I don’t have money to recharge my mobile, if you need evidence will share a screen shot.
It makes me feel demotivated towards the work. Imagine you aren’t paid for year and asked to work, will you be able to contribute?
Sai ji, there is a severe financial crunch which I am having right how. Please release my pending salary. Not crediting provident fund is also a crime, but still I haven’t complaint or raised voice against about it. I hoping there would sigh of relief soon.
Hoping for an optimist reply.
Yours, Pratibha
Mona grimaced. What kind of journalist makes so many grammatical and language errors? she wondered.
‘Just imagine if they hired only English literature graduates,’ Pavani sniggered.
Mona glared at her.
‘Sorry, ma’am, I didn’t mean that,’ Pavani said, alarmed. ‘Please forgive me.’
‘Here, look at this,’ Mona said. ‘Here’s an email from payussalary@gmail.com, a group email, from the DT journalists to the Supervisory Committee, copied to Rao.’
It read:
We, the employees of Deccan Testament’s Editorial, are collectively writing this letter to you to apprise you of our concerns and to seek clarifications.
At the outset, we would like to draw your attention to certain observations made by the courts and several government orders, which are relevant to the current situation at DT.
Mona skimmed through a list of judgments and National Company Law Tribunal orders that followed, until she came to a part of the email that made her gasp.
The management has not paid us salaries for the last three to four months. Employees in some centres/units have not received salaries for the last six to seven months. The provident fund amount is being deducted from employees’ salaries but has not been deposited for the last three years.
Mona decided to call SI Ananth.
‘Yes, Jai Hind,’ Mona said. ‘You must have seen many email complaints about the non-payment of provident fund. Please copy them for a criminal case against the company’s deputy CEO and the CFO. File an FIR. Have someone take a statement from the Provident Fund Commissioner.’
She hung up and turned to Pavani.
‘SI Pavani, please place both Gopalaiah and the CFO … what’s his name?’
‘Mr Bhoolchuk Maaf.’
‘Yes, well throw Maaf’s ass in a lock-up along with Gopalaiah’s.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Pavani said and went out.
She was back in a few minutes.
‘Ma’am, they’ve been taken to West Marredpally station lock-up.’
‘Why?’
‘Maaf was muttering that we should arrest Shrek Fund.’
‘Let him tell the judge that,’ Mona said. ‘Three years of no provident fund? The judge will double his police custody and lodge him in the central prison, where hopefully someone defamed by DT will take care of him.’
Mona went back to the email.
DT’s financial situation has become worse because of the lockdown imposed by the government to stop the spread of coronavirus. The management paid us a paltry sum of ₹10,000 each last month even though the company received advertisements for all but seven days in March 2023.
The payment of ₹10,000 is not enough. If the management continues to pay this amount, there will be a steady exit of employees, which will lead to the implosion of the company. It would cause further loss to the creditors ...
... there cannot be any leadership action without effective communication between the leader and those he leads. But the management has never conveyed its decisions to the employees, who are important stakeholders of any company as emphasized by the Supreme Court ...
The email went on in this vein for a while, until it ended, signed by the ‘Employees of Deccan Testament’s Editorial’.
‘If the government did not pay my salary for six months, I would go on strike,’ Pavani said.
‘You can’t. The police are an essential service.’
‘I know, but when the lockdown began, didn’t the government call the press an essential service? They were exempt from the lockdown.’
‘True, true,’ Mona said and scrolled through some other screenshots. All of them were similarly worded: some plaintive, some curt, some angry and some demanding the Form 16.
‘Form 16? For tax deducted at source? The company hadn’t deposited the employees’ income tax either?’ Pavani asked.
Mona called SI Ananth again. She asked him to have someone send all the emails with complaints about not receiving Form 16 to the Income Tax Commissioner in Hyderabad.
‘Let’s look at those threats now,’ Mona said to Pavani after the call.
The first one read:
Sai,
Enough of your silence. My salary is my right. The management has not only lost my loyalty, but also its right to live.
Respectfully,
A starving staffer
‘That was straight to the point,’ Mona mumbled.
The second read:
Sai,
The company has closed several centres and terminated many colleagues. Many innocent heads have rolled. It is now time for the guilty heads to roll.
The management is nothing but a gang of dacoits.
Yours, The victims of Deccan Dacoits.
‘“Deccan Dacoits” sound like a Twenty-20 cricket team,’ Mona noted.
‘Ma’am, these could only have been written by journalists.’
‘Also, neither of the emails threatened Sai specifically,’ Mona said. ‘Perhaps we ought to talk to the trade union fellow.’
Just then, Mona’s phone rang.
‘Have you cracked the case yet?’ a man barked from the other end. ‘ACP Chittla Srinivas Kumar here.’
‘Jai Hind, sir,’ Mona said. She knew that if he hadn’t been her senior, he wouldn’t have used that tone. ‘No, sir. Long haul ahead.’
‘Report to my office when you’re done for the day,’ ACP Kumar said and disconnected the phone.
‘Shall I call in K. Ghattu now?’ Pavani asked.
Mona’s phone rang again.
‘Namaste ACP Ramteke,’ a silky voice said. ‘DCP Chittla Suresh Kumar this side.’
‘Jai Hind, sir.’
‘Jai Hind, Jai Hind,’ the silky voice continued. ‘I wonder if you’ve been able to make any headway?’
‘Not yet, sir. Too many things to consider.’
‘I know, I can imagine. The rich and the powerful would never have a simple case. The TV channels have gone berserk. When you wrap up for the day, I am sure you have been summoned by the ACP for a briefing.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘After that, do drop by and brief me as well, if it’s not too much of a bother. Good evening.’
The call ended. Was it evening already? Mona looked out the window, but she couldn’t tell because the glass was tinted. She checked the time on her phone. Not yet, not yet. She would wind up here after this interview and go to meet the ACP. She nodded to Pavani.
The sub-inspector led a hefty man in. He looked to be in his forties, his hair was darker than the salt-and-pepper beard peeping out of his surgical mask, and he wore a checked synthetic shirt and dark trousers with well-worn sandals. His eyes were close-set and his wide smile stretched his nostrils over his mask’s edge.
‘Tum yahan union leader ho?’ Mona asked if he headed the union.
‘Yes, madam,’ he replied in Dakhni.
‘What do you do besides blackmailing the management?’
‘Madam, the management blackmails the workers, so it’s only fair, no?’ Ghattu’s smile never wavered. ‘I work in the phototypesetting department. Not much work, technology has come a long way.’
‘Must be a strong union at the state’s number one newspaper?’
‘Used to be, madam. Past tense.’
‘And now?’
‘Now, the company has no money. Shrek Fund hasn’t taken over, so what’s the point of threatening to go on a strike? We can put down our tools, but if the paper isn’t published then no ads will appear, which means less money earned, which means that our salaries are further delayed. We’re trapped.’
‘You seem sympathetic to the management’s troubles.’
‘Madam, twenty-seven years I have put in. Many have put in over thirty. We have nowhere else to go. As Rompy Reddy Anna said, we are like a family at DT.’
‘Well, he, Sankatram and Babloo Jubilee were certainly family.’
‘Don’t forget Magnolia Madam and their daughter, Deepthi Madam, who married and left, though she understood the paper best. The chairman and his son, they were almost carbon copies. But the chairman also knew politics.’
‘Did they ever call you “family”?’ Mona asked.
‘No, madam. Only Rompy Reddy Anna called us workers “family”, even if it was just once.’
‘You mean Mr Rompy invited you to his farmhouse to screw cheap whores?’ Pavani suddenly asked. ‘He gave you free tickets to Twenty-20 matches?’
‘No, no, not like that,’ Ghattu said. ‘Though, you know, Rompy Anna’s farmhouse is not far from the printing press on the outskirts of the city. I have heard many stories of his parties.’
‘Like what?’
‘Babloo Jubilee and he had a twisted chacha–bhatija (uncle–nephew) relationship. The boy once danced topless with two naked ladies during a loud and late party. He took a drug, too. “Cooking”, it’s called, I think.’
‘Cocaine,’ Pavani corrected him.
‘Yes, yes, cooking, cooking,’ Ghattu said, his eyes half-closed, as if he had just inhaled some cocaine himself.
Pavani rolled her eyes.
‘You were close to Velveti Rompy?’ Mona asked.
‘He is the one who interacted with the union always. The chairman spoke mainly to the journalists, and also the politicians. Such was his stature that we dared not approach him. Ever. Babloo Jubilee was too young and hot-headed. Also, he was inexperienced.’
‘The former editor-in-chief called him an “illiterate eunuch”.’
‘Is it?’ Ghattu said. ‘Chief Editor Sahib is a good man. Best journalist. Kind, always wished us. No airs. He is unlike Gopalaiah and Sai, who always act as if they are also nawabs, simply by association with the Reddys.’
‘Is it?’
‘Editor Sahib even attended a union meeting once. We put him on the dais. He sat for an hour even though we all spoke in Telugu. I never expected such patience from a north Indian.’
‘I don’t think he’s from the north,’ Mona remarked.
‘True, he did not even have samosas after the union meeting. How can that be? He he, illiterate eunuch. Good name for Babloo Jubilee. Poor late illiterate eunuch. Om shanti.’
‘Would anyone have reason to kill Sainath Rao?’ Pavani asked.
‘Everyone,’ Ghattu said cheerfully.
Pavani gave him a slap on the head. She then whipped out her sanitiser and cleaned her hands for twenty seconds.
‘Pavani,’ Mona sighed.
‘That was not a helpful answer,’ Pavani replied.
‘But it’s true,’ Ghattu said, his smile no longer visible. ‘Salaries were not only delayed but also reduced. Everyone blamed him for the reduction in salaries. Maybe twenty per cent reduction was due to the economic slowdown after the lockdown. Thirty per cent reduction in the Andhra centres. Fifty per cent in centres outside the Telugu-speaking states. Everyone blamed Sai for the non-stop bad news. Yes, everyone also blamed Gopalaiah for the delay in salaries, but they mainly held Sai accountable.’
‘What did you think of him?’
‘Typical Brahmin ready to stick a knife in your back.’
‘I know, I know,’ Mona said. ‘But that’s no reason to be casteist.’
‘Pardon, madam,’ Ghattu said, looking warily at Pavani lest she hit him again. But no, her hand sanitiser was safely back in her trouser pocket. ‘I don’t think any journalist would kill Sai, because Sai is already dead.’
‘What kind of a union leader are you?’ Pavani asked. ‘Haven’t you heard the rumours circulating in your own office?’
Ghattu blinked repeatedly. ‘Madam, I don’t think any journalist can kill anyone. They are all soft,’ he said. ‘Timid.’
‘Is it?’
‘Madam, believe me, I know what is tough. Years ago, we had many tough men in the union … men at the printing press who stopped putting in hours because they hung around outside the building, in front of the time-office at the main gate. They were the muscle.’
‘The muscle?’
‘Yes. To enforce strikes. To keep out troublemakers, like the government. There was once a time, in the 1990s, when the newspaper wrote about a local politician in Siddipet being a gangster—T. Raghunath Rao. He was enraged. He called up the then editor, Sukhi Puri Madam, and threatened to bring his supporters and burn down the office. So our Mani Rao, big man and big muscles, stood at the gate and waited for them. When the crowd approached, shouting slogans, Mani Rao told T. Raghunath Rao that he dare not step inside the gate unless he wanted to be thrashed in public. He also told T. Raghunath Rao that he would never win another election. T. Raghunath Rao considered this and then led his procession towards the police headquarters instead.’
‘You’re saying the union is tougher than the police?’ Pavani asked.
‘No, no, SI Madam. Different time. DT was a powerful institution then. Now everyone knows that the Reddys are con artists in deep trouble with both the banks and the central government.’
‘You don’t believe any journalist could be a murderer?’
‘Canning Sairam could probably be a cheat or a pickpocket, or even a forger. But a killer? No.’
‘Who would be happiest with the deaths today?’
‘We all would,’ Ghattu said. ‘The staff of the Deccan Testament. All centres. Across India.’
‘Because ...’
‘Because it would mean that Shrek Fund can finally take over the office and pay us our salaries and provident fund. Many retired union members are waiting to collect their gratuities. Lakhs of rupees.’
‘But the newspaper has no money.’
‘Yes, but the paper was handed over to Shrek Fund by the National Company Law Tribunal last year after it won the auction. It promised to inject ₹500 crore to revive the newspaper. The Shrek Fund people told the union that their first priority was to clear the dues and salaries. So, why shouldn’t we want them to come? But the Reddys didn’t want to let go. They just delayed and delayed the handover.’
‘How?’
‘With nonsensical legal cases. Proxy legal cases. One by a public sector bank, for the ‘Deccan Testament’ masthead. Knowing that Shrek Fund wouldn’t want any legal case hanging over its head, the Reddys planned one delay tactic after another. If the Reddys remained alive, the handing over would have taken years, if not forever. We would be years behind in our salaries, not just months.’
‘Why didn’t you just leave?’ Pavani asked.
‘And go where? Who will hire me?’ Ghattu responded, the smile returning to his face. ‘Many of us have never seen the world outside this company’s walls. We have limited skills. We’re unionized. And we are unemployable. We have no choice but to stay here.’
‘You want to end up like those cloth mill workers in Mumbai, or those sugar mill workers in UP, who have not been paid for decades?’
‘What to do? We are hostages of DT. Of the Reddys.’
‘That explains the Stockholm syndrome,’ Mona mused aloud.
‘But did the Reddys care? No, madam. They were ingrates. Feudal lords who believed that they were entitled to everything they had, and more, without a care for the staff. They even treated journalists like personal maids and butlers. Their ingratitude was at the core of their vileness.’
‘The Reddys and Rao were murdered,’ Mona said. ‘Did you kill them?’
‘Madam, the union had nothing to do with their deaths.’
‘The union didn’t kill them, the journalists couldn’t kill them,’ Pavani said. ‘Then who did? Who else benefitted from their deaths?’
Ghattu looked back and forth between ACP Mona and SI Pavani. ‘Shrek Fund,’ he finally said.