Chapter 213 Torture
Even though Anand's eyes turned black from the beating, the police did not let him go.
Five or six men hit him as he was spinning, using all their strength to beat him non-stop, and the iron and bamboo sticks made a crackling sound.
The sting of the blows passed through the ropes and reached his face, arms, legs, and feet.
He was bleeding, he was screaming in pain, he was begging for mercy.
But the policemen turned a deaf ear and continued to beat him.
The police tortured the prisoner for interrogation, and strangely, Anand's pleas for mercy received no response at all.
It seemed as if they were simply beating him up, with no intention of letting him speak.
Anand was beaten to death, and someone reached out to stop the spinning and freeze him.
Just when he thought it was over, the man turned him the other way and continued beating him.
After beating him enough, several policemen dragged Anand up a steel ladder to a detention room.
He was tied up like a dumpling and dragged up the hard steel ladder, leaving a bruise every time he touched a step.
Anand didn't even have the energy to scream as they dumped him in the corridor of the detention room.
The police officer on duty ordered the prisoners nearby to untie the ropes on Anand, who then stood at the door of the detention room with his hands behind his back.
When Anand was helped to stand up by the prisoners, the police grabbed his unconscious face with their hands.
Anand opened his eyes dazedly and saw his twisted smiling face through the bloodstains.
The police cursed him and spat in his face. Anand could not even hide because the other prisoners held him down.
After humiliating him, the police threw him into the first cell. When they closed the door, his expression seemed to say: Boy, you're finished, your life is over.
There was a clang of metal, a steel door slamming shut, and keys jangling.
Anand looked at the prisoners around him, and saw dead eyes, mad eyes, resentful eyes and scared eyes.
A boundless chill crept into his heart, making his body tense.
He had no idea what had happened, why he was arrested, or why these people beat him up and then left him alone.
However, his terrible days in the detention room had just begun. Just like outside, there were also different levels here.
The police station has four cells, each about nine square meters, and a corridor just over ten meters long, wide enough for two people to pass each other.
At the end of the corridor there is a urinal and a key-shaped squat toilet, both without doors.
The four cells and the corridor were filled with prisoners, a total of two hundred and forty to fifty people.
It was so densely packed, like a beehive or a termite mound, with a large group of wriggling human bodies huddled together, leaving very little space for hands and feet to move.
The toilet bowl was ankle-deep in feces, and the urinal was overflowing. The stench of feces and urine filled every space.
It was still a bit chilly in Mumbai in January, and the cell was filled with groans of pain, shouts, whispers, complaints, and occasional screams of conflict.
Anand was first placed in the first cell, which held only about ten people. They were the farthest from the toilet, had a clean room, and had a place to lie down.
The people who are imprisoned here are all rich people, and they can bribe the police to beat up any other prisoners who try to squeeze in.
The prisoners called this cell the Taj Mahal Hotel, a five-star hotel.
The second cell held about thirty people, all of whom were thieves with criminal records. In order to protect their territory, they would use the most despicable means to sneak attack challengers.
There were more than 40 people in the third room. They sat shoulder to shoulder against the wall, and each person took turns to stretch their bodies in an open space in the middle.
The people in this cell were not as vicious as the previous two, but they were united and worked together to resist the new invaders.
The last cell is closest to the toilet, so you can imagine the conditions there, and the prisoner inside is the most cunning.
Newcomers usually pass by the first cell, where they might try their luck.
But each of those dozen or so men had little followers in the corridor who would push newcomers aside and verbally threaten them to get out.
Yelling, "Next room! Next room! Get out!"
The twisting body tried desperately to push the man into the corridor. If he reached the second room, he might be suddenly attacked.
At this time, the uneasy newcomer could only go to the third room, but was beaten and kicked by several people at the door.
Next room! Next room!
The newcomer is wheeled all the way to the fourth room, where he is greeted warmly as an old friend.
Come in, my friend! Come in, my brother!
If anyone believes it, they are on a pirate ship.
The fifty or sixty people crowded in that dark and smelly room would immediately surround him and strip him naked.
The looted clothes were distributed according to the prisoners' status in the cell, and no jewelry, money, or anything useful was left.
The newcomer can only pick up the dirty clothes that others don't want to cover himself. At this time, he can either stay and join the next robbery, or go to the corridor to fight for territory with hundreds of people.
In the end, even in the corridors, there were distinctions of status, and even a small place to stand had to be fought for several times.
The best location is at the end of the corridor near the first room, and the worst location is at the back where there is a foul smell and feces and urine overflowing on the floor.
However, next to the disgusting toilet with muddy and sticky contents, some people were fighting over the shallower areas where the mud was piled.
Those who were forced to stay at the end of the corridor, forced to stand in the mud and shit up to their ankles day and night, some would collapse from exhaustion and eventually choke to death.
The prisoners can only eat one meal a day, which is served at four or five in the afternoon.
Mostly dal and naan, or rice with a thin curry sauce.
There is also competition for food, and the person at the end of the line often gets nothing and goes hungry for a day or even longer.
The people in the first cell had already arranged with the police. They even had a small steamer and six or seven plastic bottles and jars for storing tea and food.
Even during their detention they were provided with hot tea and snacks, fueled by the clothes and shoes of other prisoners.
The treatment in a five-star hotel doesn’t stop there, they also have someone to serve them when they go to the toilet.
There, wealthy people would plug their nostrils with shirts or cloth strips and hold hand-rolled cigarettes in their mouths to remove the bad smell.
They pulled their trouser legs to their knees, held their sandals in their hands, stepped into the pile of shit barefoot, and then squatted in the toilet.
The toilet flushes well, but with over two hundred people using it every day, if someone misaligns it, feces and urine will accumulate.
Rich people would step over filth and wash under the tap, where someone would wipe their feet with rags in exchange for the rich people's cigarette butts.
Anand was taken to the first room by the police themselves, and the people inside believed that he was a rich man.
He stayed there safely until the next day and was invited to have afternoon tea by the people in the first room.
Anand was beaten to a pulp and was feeling extremely hungry.
So there was no reason to refuse. He ate and drank to his heart's content, moved rudely, and looked like a starving ghost.
The people in the first room looked at each other with suspicion. They exchanged glances and started talking to him.
Anand was simple-minded and burped as he revealed everything about himself, including his last name.
He firmly believed that Indians were kind and righteous, and that everyone here was in trouble and should help each other.
He even boasted that he would give them generous rewards after they got out.
But when he wiped his mouth and looked up, he saw that everyone in the room was staring at him with unfriendly eyes.
"What...what happened?" He had a bad feeling.
"Throw it out!" someone waved his hand in disgust.
Before he could struggle, several people came in from the corridor, slapped him several times, and then dragged him outside by his hair.
Anand screamed all the way, his old injuries had not healed yet and he had new injuries.
He yelled that he had connections in Mumbai, that he knew Officer Rajesh, and that he and Ron Soul were good friends.
No one believed him, and the people in the first room even laughed.
How could the famous Mr. Sur be a brother to a Dalit?
This untouchable has lost his mind!
The people crowded in the corridor watched him having fun, neither helping him nor adding insult to injury.
They were all eliminated from the four rooms, at the bottom of the detention room.
After being beaten up, Anand stumbled to his feet. Someone tried to pull off his clean clothes, but he pushed them away screaming.
The experience of just a few hours made him no longer dare to trust anyone easily.
He was pushed back by the writhing bodies in the corridor, "Next room! Next room!"
The people in the second room were watching with eager eyes, and they had already prepared a brutal sneak attack.
Anand hesitated, not daring to move forward. Then he was pushed back again. A coward was not fit to stand here.
He kept backing away, his short and stocky figure being pushed around.
The stench grew stronger and stronger, and before he knew it, his feet were standing in a pile of feces and urine.
His intuition made him stop. This was the fourth room.
"Come on, man, come in." They greeted him warmly.
"You are injured, let me bandage you."
For a moment Anand almost took a step forward, but stopped himself.
This is the sentence he used to hear often.
He missed Ron.
The crowd continued to push him but Anand did not move.
A man squeezed over. He was a little taller and fatter than Anand.
He grabbed Anand's arms with both hands and tried to search him.
Anand struggled and cursed, and the two of them remained in a stalemate.
Everyone watched silently, their breath enveloping the two of them like a whirlpool.
Anand gritted his teeth and insisted that he could not retreat any further.
At the back was the toilet area, and at the end of the corridor, a figure lay motionless in the fetid filth.
People who are driven there will not have a good outcome, and most of them will not last more than a month.
But he was injured after all, and his strength gradually faded.
Just as he was about to be pinned to the ground by the man, Anand suddenly hit his nose with his head.
Three times, five times, seven times, his forehead just hit the man's chin, and the man's face was covered in blood.
The crowd looked at him in horror; they pushed him, pulled him, and held down his hands.
Anand struggled to move forward, biting the man's face and tearing it apart like crazy.
The man screamed and let go, waving his arms and legs desperately, crawling hard in the corridor trying to escape towards the iron gate.
Anand chased after him, grabbing his clothes. The man clung to the iron gate and shook, screaming for help.
The guard came in and saw Anand spitting out the blood and flesh in his mouth.
The man had a piece of his ear missing and was bleeding profusely.
The iron gate closed again, and the guard just looked at him in confusion and ignored him.
Anand squatted in the corridor, at the door of Room 2, and this time no one drove him away.
"Nice move, mate." Someone nearby chatted with him.
Anand remained silent.
"How did you get in?" the man continued to ask.
"I don't know," he replied.
"have no idea?"
"They arrested me at night, didn't tell me what crime I had committed, and beat me up."
"Then you're in trouble. You might have to stay here for two weeks."
"Can I go out in two weeks?" His eyes lit up.
"No, you will be sent to Arthur Road Jail in two weeks. And they have warned people here not to help you, especially those who have left. Have you offended a big shot? Yaar, I dare not help you, otherwise I will be in big trouble."
Anand looked desperate. He had to find a way to contact the outside world, or at least spread the word.
As long as Ron gets the news, he will come back to rescue.
Alas, Anand sighed again, wondering if Ron Baba had returned from Uttar Pradesh.
(End of this chapter)
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