“There was something wrong, something amiss…It needsto be probed” said the senior officer while putting an 84 mm long ciggy inbetween his lips and started groping for a match box in his pocket.
His junior officer, who quickly took out a lighter and lithis fag, insisted that it was the first such incident in past 8 years and thegraph of custodial killings had considerably shot down.
“Yes, that is the point” said the senior officer.
Puffing out a cloud of smoke, he went on:
” Whatever they are being taught seems to go in one earand out the other. I told them umpteentimes that torturing is a skill, an art that one has to learn and applysimultaneously and cautiously”
The junior officer was all ears as his senior paused for afleeting moment. He sat gingerly on his chair with his left hand on his achingback. Eina! he swore an expletive and said, “A rock hit in my back. I sawthe tearaway who threw it on me” he said.
” Yes, knew him–an engineering student at a local college” said the junior officer,adding that he would be collared in aday or two.
They again revert back to the main topic. The senior officertwirled his handle bar moustaches and said that he had given enough leeway tothe boys to torture the young men who hit streets and threw rocks on them, butit did not mean they would forget the rules. And you know, he went on saying,the rules were always simple : ” Do anything to them but when you let themoff they should at least breath.”
Crowing about his own torturing skills, he said that he hadgone through a mountain of literature about how US dealt with devils in Gitmo and had put many of such techiques togood use during his career.
“Even I have read about the torturing methods usedduring the medieval times. “Heretics fork” and “pilliwinks”intrigued me the most” the officer said.
The junior officer listened to him way carefully with outinterrupting him until a low ranking copentered the room and informed them that the trio whose telephonic conversation they had intercepted the otherday were brought to facility.
” Sir, now what to do with them?” he asked.
” Put them in that dingy holding cell and strip themnaked. Later I will see” the senior officer said.
” …And why is your shirt untucked ?” he quicklyasked him.
“Very sorry, Sir”.
While tucking the shirt into his trousers, he left the room.
There used to be P 2, a torture centre on the edge of thecity, the senior officer again continued, but the dim-witted men who managedthe facility were a bunch of amateurs. They hardly knew the skill. They killedso many men while applying different torturing techniques on them. People whosomehow survived these methods still narrate the godawful tales.
“Our’s is a better one, manned by experts. We know how to frighten the life out ofthese young bastards who always resortto rioting ” the senior officer said .
He recounted how once he extracted information from a sturdyyoung man after one of his officer’sfailed to do that.
” He boxed his ears, flailed on his buttocks, gaveelectric shocks to his genitals and evensodomized him. He worked his guts out for two days but the b****d did not givein to…”, said the senior officer, adding that he tried then his own methods.
” I threw a few pudgy rats into his trousers and hevomited everything out” he said, laughing sheepishly.
But, he quickly added, whatever they both did, they did itproperly, followed a proper procedure, ensuring that he did not die.
“…..Then he was unable to bear children and was crippledfor life but it did not matter” the senior officer recalled.
” But he was very much alive and that is what mattersfor us” he insisted.
The junior officer said that he would probe earnestly whythe man was not tortured in line with the techniques taught to them. Headjusted the brim of his peeked cap and took leave of him.