Babar hoisted the stranger on his shoulder and dropped him over the edge of the roof, near the peepal tree. The man fell to the ground with a thud. Babar pulled out a 9 mm pistol from his bag and waited for any further sounds. But there were none. He then climbed down the peepal tree, landing near the stranger’s body. It stank of vomit, alcohol and marijuana. He checked it for signs of life, but the man made no sound or movement. Nor was he breathing, and Babar could feel no pulse either.

He searched the area and found a pile of garbage, broken school furniture and mattresses at the back of the school compound. He dug out a space large enough to accommodate the body, and then deposited it in the hollow, covering it up with rubbish and broken furniture.

Minutes later, he was back on the roof.

Using his binoculars, he examined the sprawling campus of IIS&T, which lay just beyond the Mata Amritabai slum, on the fringes of which was located the abandoned school building. He made a sketch of the layout of the IIS&T campus on a piece of paper, taking care to mark the point at its rear where a series of water pipes emerged out of the boundary wall through specially made cavities.

He went back to the main road and took a cab to Dadar. From there he took a bus to Pune. He would spend the following day there, perhaps watch a movie in the afternoon, before returning to Mumbai at night. He wanted to stay away from the slum in case the alcoholic’s body was discovered in the school grounds.

Babar needed to arrange for the arrival of the two ‘trainees’ who would be assisting him in the operation and wanted no distractions till then. A day away from Mumbai would calm his nerves as well, he thought. He had not factored in having to kill somebody.

Al-Wali had told Babar time and again to avoid being noticed by the police and enforcement authorities by refraining from committing ordinary crimes that were ‘fuelled by the lust for money, land, tobacco, alcohol and women’. Al-Wali had told him that as the ‘soldiers of the community’, they ought to be above petty crime.

‘Anonymity in our work is as essential as water is for the existence of fish,’ Al-Wali had said to him.

‘And here I am, I just killed a drunken wastrel. My bad!’ Babar chuckled.

‘Good morning, the admissions have been done and we are attending lectures,’ Atharv told Al-Wali on the phone at the Sixty-Feet Road PCO. ‘I delivered the project files,’ he added.

‘Good, I hope the courses are interesting,’ Al-Wali said.

‘They are for now; it is too early to tell. But one can get a job in the private sector afterwards.’