To Where It All Began ✔

23. The Unknown Skeleton...

12:30 PM, 3rd April, Disha's home

Amna stood motionless and frozen on hearing about the mention of her parents from Sarita's mouth, "Please tell me, Aunty... Your silence is killing me every passing second"

Disha made her sit on the sofa and she exhaled a long breath and began narrating again, "I, your mother Rohini Dasgupta, and your father Shekhar Dasgupta were school friends who had lost touch with one another after passing out. In late 1990, when my husband had just joined YM hospital, I met Rohini with a newborn baby girl in her hand in one of the annual ceremonies conducted by YM Group. The little girl was your sister, Vaani Dasgupta. We recognized each other immediately"

"Then I came to know that your father, Shekhar worked as a financial consultant at YM Group, and your mother was a medical researcher at YM laboratories. All four of us became really good friends after that. Both of them supported me a lot during the whole time but finally, I had to bid goodbye and come to Pandharpur"

"But destiny had some other plans, they came to meet me and Disha. Despite my telling them to stay away from my sorrows, they still insisted that they would help me in getting justice for my husband and expose the horrendous scandal of heart valves."

"I knew that I can't do anything against the YM group on my own. I needed help and your parents offered me the same. Shekhar decided to bring financial evidence and transaction records related to HV 94 while Rohini decided to bring the real data regarding HV 94 from the research laboratories"

"Spying into that high-security zone was not at all easy, especially for Rohini who was three months pregnant with you at that time. After a lot of efforts for three and a half months, your parents managed to get all the evidence and also the real reason behind the fire"

"Real reason? Destruction of evidence, that was it, right?", Amna asked with an unknown fear in her voice.

"Correct but the fire served two purposes for Mhatre, first one you already know, the second was insurance. After the failure of HV 94, YM needed funds and the fire gave him the required insurance amount, as the Special trial ward(STW) was enabled for a huge compensation from an Indian bank, in case anything happened to it as it had the most expensive machinery and medical equipment of YM Hospital"

"When all these things were happening, the news of the sudden demise of Yashwant Mhatre came into the picture and all the rights of the company went completely to your father", she said looking in the direction of Shreekant.

"After collecting all the required proof in Mumbai, your parents and I finally decided to hand it over to a highly authorized person of the state but we couldn't just trust anybody. Just then an idea came to my mind; Pandharpur every year had a huge annual regional temple festival and that year, Chief Minister, Health Minister and some very high ranking IAS and IPS officers were coming as the chief guests, I was a part of the media personnel and was bound to be present there."

"So we decided to hand over the proof directly in the presence of thousands of cameras and officials to the CM and Health Minister so that no one can deny the evidence. The date decided was the 8th of June, the day the inauguration ceremony was to be conducted. But then..." Her voice trailed off like the painful notes of the music as she clasped the handle of the sofa. 

Taking a momentary break, she looked in the direction of Amna again, "Just four days before the decided date, I got a sudden call late night from your mother who said that she was driving to Pandharpur with Vaani. She informed me that somehow Mhatre and his people had come to know about the breach of the security"