In Search of Truth

Sekhar and Cathie arrived. I told them what we had found with respect to Jennifer's case. Both of them were surprised to hear that there a new religion that had taken birth and was trying to get stronger and stronger.

I noticed that Cathie was thinking something, so I asked her, "Cathie, what happened?"

"I now understand something, Jennifer was made to believe strongly that the cult group was correct and there was a strong need for a religion. This was achieved by administering the drugs, which can create hallucination and make the person believe that what they hear or see is true. She was made to believe that by means of drugs. But we need to understand how these two are related, that is, how Jennifer has been preached and how drugs were in parallel administered. How these things were done simultaneously? Who did this?"

Cherry arrived while we were talking and he shared with us what he had found last night by hacking into the messenger database and server.

"I managed to hack into the messenger's database and server. What is interesting is there are two different versions of chat. The wife had sent something and the husband had replied. But both of them never got to see what each other had really sent."

"What? Can you be more specific?" requested Sekhar.

"Let's look at the chat transcript. This is when Vicky was trying to console her wife as they were not able to get together for a dinner. Husband writes, 'Sorry dear, I couldn't take you out for dinner as promised, I would definitely do it next week without fail.' Here is the wife's original reply, 'I understand that you are under severe work pressure. We can go some other time, whenever you have time.' And here is the wife's modified reply, which is what the husband finally got to see, 'You don't love me and don't care about me at all.' To which, the reply received from the husband, as seen by the wife was, 'Why don't you try to understand me? Why are you not supporting me?' And the wife's original message was, 'I understand you are talking under severe pressure, let's meet face to face.' However, the wife's modified reply, as

seen by Vicky was, 'Go to hell, I think we are not meant for each other.'" Cherry paused to look at us.

"I am still confused, Cherry. Can you please explain in detail?" I asked him.

Cherry explained, "They both were chatting with each other but there was an interception in between. They only got to see what they typed in the beginning and in the end, i.e. Vicky's first message saying sorry was seen as is by his wife and wife's message that he never cares about her was seen as is by Vicky. The rest of the messages were intercepted, changed and delivered to each of them. I noticed this happened almost every time they had a discussion over chat. This is called as man-in-the-middle attack, but not in its original form. Someone was watching over every time they had a chat."

"Were you able to trace out who it was?" asked Sekhar.

"No, by the time I could do that the session got terminated abruptly, and I was not able to connect again. May be the security alerts got triggered and the security folks might have identified that I had hacked into the system," said Cherry.

"So we have a clue now, what we need to do is find out who was intercepting their messages

and sending altered messages to each party," I said.

"Cherry, please try to explore further and find out who has been doing all this. Let me know if you need any support. I appreciate if you can give us full details by tomorrow." I requested him to work very closely on this and he left saying that he will do all that he can.

"Jai, any suspicions on anyone in this case?" asked Sekhar.

"No Sekhar, we need talk to Vicky's wife and find out some details. Let's go and meet her tomorrow."

They both left and I started trying to connect all these incidents. All the three victims were some way or the other influenced by content on the Internet and social media, and were psychologically made to believe that what they saw or heard during their interactions with people over phone and Internet were true.

I called Cherry and asked him to check the possibilities of hacking into NCDHM and find some details related to Bobby.

I also called Smith and told him that we needed some support in the form of few approvals to carry out further investigation. He agreed to arrange for the same.

The three of us assembled in our office and were waiting for Cherry. Cherry arrived, he appeared to be even more excited.

"Cherry, what makes you so excited? I am assuming that you have made some progress and have some news for us. Is that so?" I asked him.

"Yes Jai, I managed to hack into NCHDM systems and accessed records of Bobby. Your assumption was right. There is a difference between what was being observed during the tests of Bobby, and what was being reported, and what was finally concluded," said Cherry.

"Jai, can you please explain what is going on?" asked Cathie.

"Sure, Cathie. I had asked Cherry to hack into the NCHDM systems and find out observation records of Bobby, i.e. what was actually submitted

during the tests and observations. Cherry found that there was a mismatch between observation data and final report. Either the reports were tampered with, or the observation parameters were altered. Cherry, where is the gap?" I asked Cherry.

"The actual architecture of the system is in such a way that the observation data was being maintained separately and was used for complete analysis and diagnosis later. I was able to access the observation data. That is where I found this information. Later, I tried accessing the report database and found that there was a difference between data used for generating report and data observed. I ran a search through all the records and found that this was done for some other patients as well. I couldn't copy all that information as it was very huge in size," concluded Cherry.

"So, there is somebody who is tampering with the data in both the cases. Bobby's reports were tampered. Vicky's chat with his wife was intercepted and tampered," said Sekhar.

"We need to find that. Let's go and meet Vicky's wife first, and then go to NCHDM."

Sekhar and Cathie went outside and I told Cherry about the next thing that he had to do. Cherry was more excited than ever. He felt that

this was bigger than anything that he had ever worked on. He left from there and we booked a cab to visit Vicky's wife.

The cab arrived and we boarded it. Sekhar started talking to the driver. "You were the one who dropped me here from the airport some days ago, right?"

The driver nodded and started driving the cab. Sekhar continued his conversation, "That day you mentioned you had to attend to your wife and give medication to her. I asked for the reason and you left without acknowledging. Would you mind telling the reason now?"

The driver was silent for a moment. Then he explained, "She is diagnosed with something called NEAR syndrome. We got married four years ago. Before marriage, she was working in a college as a full-time lecturer; and after marriage, she switched to a part-time job to provide support for the family expenses. Later, she met with an accident and remained bedridden. I spend almost eighteen hours a day on the road. She is idle and alone. She spends most of her time on the Internet. For a year, she was okay. But later on, she started showing symptoms of NEAR syndrome. We started medication." He continued while the three of us listened to him with utmost attention.

"Sometimes she behaves wildly and we have to increase the dosage of drugs. Post that she would take at least two days' time to become normal. But during this time, she remains silent and never speaks with anyone. She just spends time on the Internet." He stopped there as we had reached our destination. Sekhar took the cab driver's phone number and the cab left from there.

"Does this give any clue or pointers to us?" I asked Sekhar and Cathie.

"If we get some more details in other two cases, only then I think we can conclude anything," said Cathie.

Vicky's wife took us into the house. I asked her "Can you please tell us if there is anyone who never liked your husband or you? I mean do you or your husband have enemies?"

"I never fought with anyone, I am an introvert and my interactions are very limited. Vicky was like me. He used to say that there was one colleague who always picked arguments or fight with him for one reason or the other. But that colleague had left the company where Vicky worked," the wife explained.

"Left the company? When was that? Was it before Vicky died or after that?" I asked her.

"It was before my husband died. He left the company because he was not promoted while Vicky got promoted. I still remember Vicky telling me that on his last day that colleague came and told him that his talent was not recognized just because of Vicky, and he didn't want to continue working there. That person felt that Vicky had done something, which is why he didn't get what he deserved." She explained.

"Thanks for the details and we will come back to you if we need to know anything else." And we left from there.

"So, do we need to suspect Vicky's colleague?" asked Sekhar. "I don't think so. Focusing on him will be a time waste for us." I said.

"Why not?" asked Cathie.

"Will tell you shortly," I said. "I am out of city for two days on a personal trip. We will catch up again after two days."

I visit the Himalayas every year for a break from my routine. This time, I planned a little early as I had started feeling restless with whatever was going on and was unable to arrive at any conclusion. I packed and got on to the flight, and finally reached the hotel where I usually stay.