The Conference Meeting Case

In April 2019, Jeet Thakur Sahai had to go to Bengaluru for an annual Research Analysts’ Conference. The conference had many meeting scheduled for various categories of personnel. Jeet would be there for the five days of the conference. His friends Aziz Khan and Tapan Sabarwal were also attending the conference. There were a few analysts from the police services there, including Jeet, but most from other departments and companies.

On the third day, Jeet was attending one of the meetings for the conference in the Conference Center in room 502. In the adjacent room, 503, another meeting was taking place. At about 3:11 pm, shouting could be heard from room 503. Jeet and his colleagues went to room 503. There, an analyst from Fibro & Associates, Patna, was dead. His name was Kushal Negi. Security were called and the police were to arrive soon as they had been notified.

Jeet showed his identification card to everyone in room 503 and explained his credentials.

Jeet: “How did this happen? No one will leave this room till the police arrive soon.”

Security Officer Jaiswal: “Do not worry. My colleagues and I will make sure of that.”

Mr. Advani (the Chair of the Meeting in room 503): “As the meeting was starting, I suggested that everyone introduce themselves. So all 18 people in the room shook hands with each other. By the time we were done, Kushal collapsed on the floor, winced in pain and died soon. We tried to help him but could not save him.”

Jeet: “The police will come and do their investigation, but till then I would like to do a little bit of investigating myself.”

Mr. Advani: “Please do so. By all means, go ahead.”

Security Officer Jaiswal: “I received a call from Inspector Brijesh Srivastava. He and his team will arrive here in 15 minutes.”

Jeet: “Good. Till then, I would like to check everyone’s hands from a little distance.”

All 17 participants in the room who had come for the meeting showed Jeet their hands from a little distance. Jeet noticed that 6 of them were wearing rings.

When Police Inspector Srivastava arrived, Jeet talked to him in private.

Jeet: “Inspector Brijesh, I suspect one of the six people with rings have killed Kushal. By shaking hands with Kushal, the murderer’s ring’s tip touched the hand of Kushal and then he died due to poisoning. I think this is what has happened.”

Inspector Brijesh: “Alright, my colleagues here will interview the rest of the people and I will take the six suspects along with another colleague to my police station. I will call the forensics team who will be there in 30 minutes to help with the investigation.”

Inspector Brijesh told the six suspects that they are being detained for now and with another colleague took them to the police station. Jeet went with them as well.

The forensics team examined each ring carefully one by one and found out that one of the rings was poisonous. The ring belonged to Suraj Trivedi. He was an analyst from Dibru & Brothers, Ranchi. Upon further investigation, it was found out that Kushal and Suraj had worked before. Back then Kushal had complained to their former manager about Suraj’s misconduct on a certain file. The former manager took the allegation seriously and did some investigating. Suraj had done falsifying of information on an important file and the former manager had fired him from the job. Suraj was furious as he came to know that Kushal had made the complaint against him. After a few years Suraj found out that Kushal would be attending the same conference. Then he plotted his revenge against him and hoped that no one would find out who the murderer was.

Suraj was placed under arrest and his court case would start in 3 weeks. Inspector Brijesh thanked Jeet for his help.

Jeet attended the last days of the conference and then returned to Delhi to resume his work. His friends, Aziz and Tapan, returned to Delhi as well as their offices were there too.