Khaki in Dust Storm

Book excerpt: Khaki in Dust Storm is a gripping story of immersive investigations led by the celebrated police officer Amod K. Kanth who found himself at the vortex of India's tumultuous period of the 1980s and early 1990s. An era of dramatic crime, assassinations and terrorism, this period witnessed the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and the horrific riots that followed; the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi; the murder of Lalit Maken and General Vaidya; public attacks by terrorists and bloodbaths at the peak of the Khalistani militancy; India's first-ever organised mass explosions through improvised electronic device in 1985, popularly known as 'transistor bombs'; and the growing influence of drug abuse and financial frauds. Leading into the minefield of these most sensational crime investigations that rocked India, he reveals in this book facts, stories and anecdotes that have hitherto remained outside the public discourse. He pieces together the details, narrates behind-the-scene manoeuvres, and carefully constructs the psyche of the perpetrators and the backdrop, weaving together a fantastic and powerful tale. This is also a story of a cathartic evolution of a police officer who, after landing in the coveted Indian Police Service, finds his dreams challenged and confined to the restricted role in the face of India's myopic conventional policing. This resulted in his eventual metamorphosis, overwhelmed by the need to search for a wider and transformative perspective in policing that could lay the groundwork for more expanded and gratifying interactions between the police and the community.