Yours truly, with hostility

One channel’s reporter had this EXCLUSIVE: ‘‘Shots from Ansal Plaza, an aerial view, interviews with puzzled and irritated Ansal Plaza shoppers and even shots of the mortuary where the bodies would be taken,’’ But sadly, nothing from the basement where the action was allegedly happening.

At this stage I was a nervous wreck. I didn’t know what was happening, but anxious relations, friends, well wishers and ill-wishers alike were assuming that I was well informed. My cousin Monty in Dhaka who watched the live pictures warned me, ‘‘If you are in Ansal Plaza, you are dead.’’ My shopkeeper friend in Ansal Plaza was wondering whether he should believe what was being reported on TV or pretend that nothing had happened.

(At the press conference later where my version was rubbished, the Delhi police tracked me on the basis of my MPM (mobile phone movements) to the bar at the India International Centre in New Delhi. The time was 7:13:07., latitude 89 longitude 45 Fahrenheit 52.)

I was tearing my hair out. I switched channels again. Yet another EXCLUSIVE report said, ‘‘This is the shoelace of the shoe of the terrorist. Behind me is the wall which is adjacent to the floor where the terrorists shoe was placed, sorry found.’’

Obviously the ‘‘operation’’ was over.

(The Delhi police claimed my mobile phone indicated that I was at the Press Club, the Gymkhana Club, the Chelmsford Club and back to the IIC between 7:49 p.m. and 11.30 p.m.)

I was by now like a frustrated Eden Garden cricket fan in a one-dayer just when India is losing a match. ‘‘I can now say that there were two terrorists who were gunned down by thirty policemen in a fierce encounter,’’ said a charming face, ‘‘Police say, and this is exclusive, sixty bullets were fired.’’

(I was imagining an official screaming in the basement, ‘‘Hey, go easy and fire one at a time, I am losing count!’’) Said another channel, ‘‘The fact that the terrorists were wearing sports shoes suggests they were terrorists.’’ I was at the end of my tether. Suddenly the dam burst—I smashed my TV set even as a channel was promising more EXCLUSIVE LIVE after the break.

Based on its ‘‘technical investigations’’, the police concluded that my testimony was false. They also said they were enquiring into how I was ordering a drink over my mobile phone when the bars were supposed to have closed down by 11 p.m. It was also disclosed that they had a number of criminal offences against me, the most serious one being using a mobile phone at a petrol pump and causing danger to national security.

I explained that a friend of mine had mistakenly taken my mobile phone, that I as a law abiding citizen never forget to strap myself in the car, never used my mobile phone while driving, never smoked in a public place. The police said, ‘‘These are all afterthoughts. We already have his signed confession before a magistrate. When last heard he was causing damage to national property like TV sets. How can you believe his testimony?’’

Write to rajusanthanam@expressindia.com