The Midnight Train

29th August, 2007
The station tower clock struck 12. The station officials started winding up their work for the day and queued outside the station-master's cabin to sign out in the logbook. The hourly patrols by the RPF began by then. A southbound train screeched to a halt. Sarayu, a RPF constable who was drunk by then wanted to pee. He boarded a sleeper coach of the train and advanced to the toilet. While peeing, he heard a sound which seemed like a child crying from one of the compartments in the same coach. Ignoring it, he took out a bottle of country liquor from his pocket. As he was ready to gulp it down, he heard the same noise again.Now it was something fishy for sure, he thought. He forwarded to check the origin of the noise. On reaching the compartment he saw three people busy playing cards. The rest of the compartment seemed empty.
Sarayu was known in his professional circle for his notorious habit of drinking. Despite this, he had won the Chief minister's medal for the best cop seven years in a row. Now he still suspected foul play about the people playing cards. He saw criminals in them. Not wanting to take a chance, he informed the other patrol officers and they raided the compartment. What they found was worse than hell. Under the seats and on the top berths were present children aged around 10-15 years. The count was 15 till now. The three people tried to escape through the other side, but their ill luck favored them with another batch of patrol members waiting for them on the opposite exit. They were caught. The city police was informed and it quickly swung into action. The three people were arrested and the children were also taken into custody.
The railway police station never seemed so much active as today. It was 3am and the city was still asleep. By the dawn one could see a number of prominent people in the police station. Senoir Bureaucrats, prominent social workers and representatives of those big NGOs, lawyers as usual(as they smelled money even here) were here to know the case. The media was barred from all the happenings inside the station.
Newspaper reports came out a day later. Most of them reported it as a child trafficking case. It was true. The 15 children were from the siliguri region of west Bengal. They were being taken to kerala where they were promised jobs in industries. Identity cards retrieved from two persons claimed that they worked for a private hospital in Munnar, Kerala. The third person spoke Bengali and it seemed like he was the broker.The same day they were convicted rigourous imprisonment by a fast track court and the children were relocated to a child welfare home in the city operated by a very prominent NGO.
The people forgot this case in due course of time. Weeks later another report from a reputed Malayalam daily exposed that a hospital in Munnar was illegally transplanting human organs mostly of children to the patients from the middle east countries.
This was the same hospital whose name was the on the ID cards of the two convicts.

26th January, 2008-Republic Day Function
Sarayu woke up to a start on his seat. The suit complete with the tie didn't fit him well. He wore them for the sake of his grandson and on his wife's insistence.The long speech by the governor just got over. The prize distribution ceremony had just started and rounds of applause followed. Then the host announced
"and the chief minister's medal for the best officer( railway protection force) goes to....."
NO PRIZES FOR GUESSING THIS!!!

(Disclaimer- This story is a work of fiction. It bears no resemblance to any incident or event.)