Aditya Karnik
Shadows at Dawn
The sun hadn’t risen yet, but the mist already draped over the ancient stone temple like a shroud. Birds refused to sing. In the village of Chittakere, Karnataka, morning was no longer a time of peace—it was a countdown to death.
Detective Prasant Sharma stepped out of the jeep, his boots sinking slightly into the wet red earth. His khaki coat bore the weight of night-long travel and older memories he didn’t want stirred. Behind him, constables Sanjay and Latha looked equally grim, both glancing toward the towering temple spire that loomed against the pale sky.
“Third body in seven days,” Latha whispered, flipping through her notebook. “Always a young woman. Always near the sanctum.”
Prasant didn’t reply immediately. His eyes were fixed on the sprawling stone steps leading up to the Sri Mahadeva Jagruti Mandir. Time-worn sculptures of celestial beings and coiling serpents adorned the walls. The locals called it a living temple—one that still breathed, whispered, and, lately, killed.
“Let’s see the scene,” he finally said.
The temple priest, Pandit Harinarayan, waited near the entrance, fingers twitching against his bead string. An old man, thin as a reed, with a tilak faded on his wrinkled forehead, his eyes darted nervously between the detectives and the inner sanctum.
“She was found right after mangala aarti, sir,” he mumbled. “It was still dark. I—I only saw the silhouette at first. I thought it was a goddess statue fallen over… until I saw the blood.”
Inside the temple, the sanctum was lit by flickering oil lamps. The body had already been moved to the local health center, but the blood remained—a dark pool against cold granite. A shawl, half-soaked, lay nearby. No signs of forced entry. No broken idols. No screams heard.
“Same pattern,” Sanjay noted. “Marks on the neck. No defensive wounds. And always within that one-hour window—between 4:30 and 5:30 a.m.”
“But how does someone get in and out,” Latha muttered, “with at least fifteen people attending morning darshan?”
Prasant walked slowly around the sanctum, feeling the walls, the floor. Something tugged at him—a wrongness, like a secret just behind the surface. There was no CCTV inside, only an old metal box outside the sanctum labeled “Electrical — Do Not Touch.”
“Who was the girl?” he asked.
“Tourist,” Latha said. “Name’s Kavya Jain. Twenty-five. Stayed in the guesthouse next to the lake. She went missing last night after dinner.”
“Same as Rukmini and Nilofer before her,” Prasant said, almost to himself. “First tourists. Then locals.”
Pandit Harinarayan cleared his throat. “Sir… if I may speak freely… some villagers say it’s the wrath of the goddess. She’s angry. She—”
“She’s not killing girls every morning like clockwork,” Prasant cut him off. “This is human.”
He stepped outside. The air felt heavier now, as if the temple exhaled something foul. A small group of villagers had gathered beyond the police tape, eyes wide, lips murmuring prayers. Among them, a young woman—maybe nineteen—was staring straight at Prasant.
When he walked toward her, she didn’t flinch.
“You know something?” he asked.
She hesitated. Then: “My cousin went for darshan two months ago. We never saw her again.”
“Name?”
“Mallika. No one believed me. They said she ran off. But I heard her scream that morning. No one else did.”
Prasant narrowed his eyes. “Did she go in with someone?”
The girl shook her head. “Alone. But the priest’s son… I saw him standing near the side entrance before dawn. No one asked why.”
Prasant turned slowly toward the temple. The priest’s son—he’d been conveniently absent during questioning. Lived in the house next to the temple. Never involved in daily rituals, yet never fully away.
“Time to dig deeper,” he said.
That night, Prasant and his team stayed near the temple. Hidden, silent, watching. No rituals. No shadows. But just before dawn, something moved behind the sanctum—barely visible in the gloom.
A figure. A man. Unlocking something in the side wall.
And then—a second silhouette, smaller, dragged.
The mist swallowed everything.
Prasant stood up slowly. “We go in tomorrow. No prayers. No myths. No ghosts. Just answers.”
Tomorrow would be the eighth morning.
And if they failed, there would be a fourth girl.
The Temple’s Secret
The village of Chittakere woke to another uneasy dawn. But unlike the past seven mornings, this one did not begin with the screams of a body being discovered. For the first time in a week, there was only silence—thick, waiting silence. As if even death was holding its breath.
Detective Prasant Sharma stood in front of the side wall of the temple’s sanctum. The bricks looked unremarkable, aged by time and monsoon, but last night he had seen someone open a hidden panel in this very wall. It was too fast, too practiced. Whoever it was knew exactly which stone to press.
“Latha,” he called, “get the forensic team here. I want this wall scanned for hollows, hinges, anything.”
The young constable nodded and rushed off.
Prasant walked a few steps away and studied the structure from a distance. The Sri Mahadeva Jagruti Mandir was more than 800 years old, a marvel of Hoysala architecture. Beneath the sculptures and mythology, it was also a fortress of secrets.
By 7 AM, the forensic team had identified a loose stone—one that clicked in with a gentle push. Behind it, a mechanism. A section of the wall creaked open, revealing a narrow staircase descending into darkness.
“No one knew about this?” Prasant asked the old priest, who stood trembling behind the yellow tape.
“I—my father once spoke of ancient passages, but they were supposed to be sealed… sacred… forbidden to enter,” the priest stammered.
“Sacred or not, they’ve been used,” Prasant muttered. “Let’s go.”
He, Latha, and two officers descended the steps with torches. The air grew colder and heavier as they walked, the smell of damp stone and stale incense choking the passage. The stairwell led to a small underground chamber—empty save for chains bolted to one wall and the faint remnants of cloth and rope on the floor.
“A holding cell,” Latha said quietly. “For victims.”
“Someone’s been using this space recently. Look at this…” Prasant pointed at a corner where fresh scratch marks marred the stone. “Whoever was kept here struggled.”
“Why kill them?” Latha whispered. “Why not just traffic them like the others?”
Prasant didn’t answer immediately. His jaw clenched. “Something must have gone wrong. Maybe they resisted. Maybe they recognized someone. Or maybe the killer’s growing careless.”
Back on the surface, a breakthrough was waiting.
A tourist from Hyderabad had come forward claiming that her friend had disappeared after visiting the temple a month ago. They’d been taking morning selfies near the lake when a temple volunteer offered to show them a “rare private darshan.” Only her friend went. She never returned.
“I went to the police station that afternoon,” the girl said. “They told me she probably ran away with someone.”
Prasant grit his teeth. “Who was the volunteer?”
“I don’t know his name. But I remember his face. He had a scar on his neck. And he was wearing a maroon kurta.”
The priest’s son.
His name was Raghav Harinarayan, a man in his late twenties. No official role in the temple, but always around. Charming when needed, quiet otherwise. Several locals had seen him escort women into the temple for special rituals, but no one had thought it strange—until now.
“Where is Raghav now?” Prasant asked the old priest.
“I… I haven’t seen him since last week,” the priest replied, but his eyes darted to the side.
“You’re lying,” Prasant said coldly. “You’ve been protecting him.”
“I’m not—he’s my son!” the priest burst out. “But I didn’t know what he was doing, I swear! I thought he was helping with temple work, guiding tourists—”
“He was guiding them to a dungeon,” Prasant snapped. “And killing those who wouldn’t follow his plan.”
A call came through. Sanjay, who had been tracing CCTV footage from nearby shops, reported something useful.
“We have a grainy shot from the main road,” he said over the phone. “Raghav was seen two nights ago entering the temple just before dawn. No footage of him leaving.”
“So he’s still inside,” Prasant said.
Or underground.
The search intensified. A second tunnel was discovered behind the statue of Nandi, the bull guardian of Shiva. This passage was wider and led straight under the lake.
Halfway through, they found more evidence: drug vials, expired passports, used cell phones—likely taken from the abducted girls.
And finally—footprints. Recent.
Raghav was still hiding in the catacombs.
The hunt was on.
Beneath the Stone
The underground passage was narrow, its walls carved crudely through stone and packed earth. The air was humid, heavy with mildew and something else—an acrid tang that reminded Prasant Sharma of antiseptic and blood. He held his flashlight steady as he and Latha crept deeper into the tunnel beneath the temple.
“Don’t breathe too loud,” he murmured. “He could be listening.”
Behind them, two constables followed with weapons drawn. The passage turned sharply, revealing a large hollow chamber that had clearly been used for more than prayer.
Mattresses, tattered and stained, were pushed into the corners. A kerosene stove sat near a wall, recently used. A stack of plastic water bottles, a torn backpack with a girl’s name written in cursive—“Aisha”—and an ID card from a Delhi university.
Latha crouched and picked it up. “She’s one of the missing. This confirms it.”
Prasant’s jaw tightened. “This is where he held them before moving them. They were trafficked through this tunnel.”
“But why kill some of them?” Latha whispered. “There’s a system here. Girls were kept alive, transported discreetly. The murders don’t make sense.”
“He’s slipping,” Prasant said. “Serial killers often escalate when they feel the system’s closing in. Or when guilt catches up. Either way, he’s still somewhere in this maze.”
A sharp sound echoed through the passage—a metal clatter, distant but definite.
All torches swung to the right.
“This way!” Prasant called out.
They ran through a winding path, deeper and steeper until the floor dipped and water lapped at their shoes. They’d reached a flooded tunnel section. Ancient bricks were slick with moss. Ahead, torchlight caught a brief flash of movement—someone turning a corner.
“That’s him!” Latha shouted.
“Raghav!” Prasant’s voice thundered. “You’re surrounded. You have one chance—come out alive!”
But there was only silence. And then—a splash.
They charged forward. The passage led to a jagged opening in the rock. On the other side: a hidden exit that emerged behind the temple, near the riverbank. A perfect escape route, masked by centuries of silt and shadow.
Outside, the team fanned out. Prasant’s eyes scanned the dense trees. A figure sprinted through the underbrush. Without thinking, he gave chase.
“Freeze!” he shouted.
The figure stumbled, then bolted into a clearing. Prasant tackled him hard. The man screamed, flailed—but it wasn’t Raghav. It was a boy. Barely sixteen.
“Who are you?” Prasant demanded, cuffing him.
“M-my name is Shivu. I-I just work there. I help with the cooking, cleaning… Raghav told me to guard the passage!”
“You know where he is?”
The boy hesitated, then nodded. “He’s still inside… near the water tunnel. He has a gun.”
They dragged the boy back to the main temple and began sealing off all known exits. Officers were posted at the sanctum, the stairwells, the lake path.
At noon, the priest came forward—shaking, broken.
“He came to me last night,” the old man said. “Begged me to help him escape. I said no. He… he wept, Prasant ji. Told me he never meant to kill. But he did. And more than once.”
“What did he say about the girls?”
The priest looked away. “He said some refused to obey, some tried to scream. The ones from outside… he thought no one would come looking. But he wasn’t always like this. After his mother died, something twisted inside him. I raised a demon.”
Prasant stood silent for a moment. “No, Panditji. You allowed him to grow in the dark. Now we bring him into the light.”
They prepared for a final sweep.
That evening, the officers descended once more into the tunnels—this time with full gear, night vision, and gas masks. Prasant led them toward the water passage, heart pounding with each step.
And then—gunfire.
One shot.
A scream.
And silence.
They found Raghav crouched at the end of the tunnel, wounded in the shoulder. He had tried to turn the gun on himself, but his aim had faltered. Blood poured down his arm.
“It was all for the money,” he hissed as they cuffed him. “They paid well. Foreign clients. Locals too. I just picked the ones no one would miss.”
“You killed three girls,” Prasant said coldly.
“Three?” Raghav chuckled. “You only found three.”
The smile on his face was the last straw.
Prasant punched him—once, hard—before the constables dragged the man out of the tunnel, out of the shadows.
Outside, the village watched. Some wept. Others prayed. And a few stood in silence, rage simmering just beneath their skin.
Prasant looked up at the towering temple, its sanctum now sealed with police tape.
The gods hadn’t spoken.
But a monster had been unmasked.
Rituals and Lies
The temple was shut. A signboard hung on its carved wooden gates read:
“Under Criminal Investigation – No Entry Until Further Notice”
The villagers avoided even looking in its direction. Pilgrims turned back. And those who had prayed for answers now whispered about ghosts and guilt trapped within stone.
Detective Prasant Sharma sat across from Raghav Harinarayan in the Chittakere sub-jail’s dim interrogation room. Raghav’s bandaged shoulder twitched every few seconds, but his expression remained defiant.
“You know what I don’t understand?” Prasant asked calmly. “You had a perfect system. No evidence. No bodies. You could’ve kept trafficking those girls for years. Why start killing?”
Raghav smirked. “You think I’m stupid. I know what you’re doing. Good cop mind games.”
“No games,” Prasant said. “Just answers.”
Raghav leaned forward, voice low. “You don’t know what it feels like… to be a god. To choose who lives, who vanishes, who becomes a story no one believes.”
“You’re not a god. You’re a parasite.”
Raghav chuckled. “I was cleaning the system. These girls… runaways, rebels. No family. Or families who didn’t care. You think they mattered more than me?”
Prasant stood. “You’ll rot in prison. And every morning will remind you of the ones you murdered.”
As he walked out, Latha met him with new evidence. “We traced financial transactions from an offshore account. Payments made to Raghav over the last eleven months—mostly during festivals when the temple crowd was at its peak. He was being paid per girl.”
“Who else was involved?”
“We’re still digging, but some payments were linked to a travel agency in Goa. They booked temple tours for foreigners. We suspect they handpicked victims.”
A wider ring. Of course.
“And the priest?” Prasant asked.
“Still claiming ignorance. But there’s something strange. The temple trust records show a hidden fund—cash deposits made over decades. It’s possible this has been happening longer than Raghav’s involvement.”
“You’re saying he didn’t start it,” Prasant said slowly. “He inherited it.”
That night, the priest was brought in for questioning.
Under pressure, the old man broke.
“My father knew,” he whispered. “He never spoke of it directly, but… there were rules. Certain girls were denied entry. Others were taken for ‘special darshan.’ He told me it was for the protection of the temple.”
“How many girls?” Prasant asked.
The priest didn’t answer.
“Did you ever try to stop it?”
Tears welled up in his eyes. “I wanted to. But I feared exile. I feared the temple would lose everything. And when Raghav began taking control, I—I pretended not to see.”
“You protected a murderer. You stood by as girls were destroyed.”
“I stood by,” the priest whispered, broken.
Prasant felt a wave of rage and sorrow crash together inside him. He’d seen corruption before, greed, even fanatics—but this? This was rot wrapped in ritual. Sanctified evil.
Outside, a local journalist approached Prasant.
“Sir, we’re hearing that the girls weren’t just trafficked—they were branded. Tattoos behind their ears. Did your team find any proof?”
“We’re still investigating,” Prasant said carefully. “Don’t print what’s not confirmed.”
“But one survivor is willing to speak.”
That stopped him.
“Survivor?”
“A local girl. Seventeen. Name: Sushmita. Escaped six weeks ago. She never spoke because she thought no one would believe her.”
Prasant and Latha went to the address immediately. The girl was frail, haunted, but her story was clear.
“I was taken during Shivratri,” she said. “Told I’d get blessings if I went for early darshan. I was drugged. Locked underground. For days. Then one night, the lock was loose. I ran. Hid in the forest for two days before someone found me.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“They said it was a dream. That I had fainted during prayers. Even my father said it must be a vision.”
“Did Raghav… hurt you?”
She looked away. “Not him. Someone else. A foreign man. I never saw his face clearly.”
Latha gasped. “This goes beyond the village.”
Prasant stood. “We’re pulling in the Goa connection next. This isn’t over.”
As they left, Sushmita said quietly, “They said if I spoke, the goddess would curse me.”
Prasant turned to her. “There’s no goddess in this story. Only men pretending to be gods.”
The Mastermind Unmasked
The monsoon clouds rolled in heavy over Chittakere, as if the sky itself were holding its breath. Inside the control room set up near the temple, Detective Prasant Sharma reviewed a growing wall of evidence. Photos of missing girls, financial documents, map routes, travel agency receipts, and screenshots of encrypted chats.
This wasn’t just a village tragedy anymore—it was a national operation hiding under the veil of faith.
Latha stepped in, a grim look on her face. “We traced the Goa travel agency. It’s a shell. Registered under a fake name—Samarth K. Harinarayan.”
Prasant turned sharply. “That’s the priest’s full name.”
“No,” she said. “It’s the son’s. The other son. Raghav had a younger brother.”
The room went silent.
“What?”
“Name: Nandan Harinarayan. Moved to Goa eight years ago. On paper, he runs an Ayurvedic retreat. In reality, he operates under the name ‘Samarth’ and launders money through fake wellness packages and tour groups. He hasn’t been seen in public in months.”
Prasant stared at the board. Two sons. One visible monster. One shadow puppet master.
“The priest lied again,” he said softly. “He knew both his sons were involved. Raghav was the bait, Nandan ran the business.”
A raid team was dispatched to Goa that evening.
The retreat was a luxurious façade: thatched cottages, imported incense, yoga brochures in German and French. Beneath it all, they found rooms with reinforced locks, hidden compartments with confiscated passports, and half-burned ledgers buried under rosewood floorboards.
But Nandan was gone.
The caretaker—paid handsomely to keep silent—finally cracked. “He left last week. Said Chittakere was heating up. He’d been watching the news.”
“Where was he heading?” Prasant asked.
“I don’t know,” the man said, eyes lowered. “But he said something about returning to the roots.”
Back to the temple.
Back to the sanctum.
They rushed back to Chittakere the next morning.
The temple, cordoned off and empty, had one visitor in the CCTV footage just before dawn: a tall man in a priest’s robe. Face obscured. Entry through the back, then vanished.
“Check the tunnels!” Prasant barked.
Officers descended again. This time, they found evidence of recent movement. The floor was swept, but muddy footprints gave it away. A candle burned low near the secondary tunnel—one that led not outside, but deeper into the mountain base.
And then, in a chamber none of them had mapped, they found Nandan.
He sat cross-legged in front of a broken idol—an old, discarded statue of a goddess once worshipped and now crumbling. Around him: bones, burned photos, shredded saris.
“Don’t move!” Prasant shouted, gun raised.
Nandan looked up, eerily calm. “She’s finally gone, you know.”
“Who?”
“The goddess,” he whispered. “She used to speak to us. My brother and I. But then you came. You broke the pact.”
Prasant stepped closer. “You used her name to enslave girls.”
“I gave them salvation,” Nandan hissed. “In a world that sold them anyway. We chose them. Purified them.”
“You sold them,” Prasant said flatly. “You ran an international trafficking ring. And when they resisted, you murdered them.”
“They were chosen. Only the unwilling died.”
Prasant didn’t blink. “You’re under arrest.”
Nandan tried to light a match—but Latha kicked it from his hand. He snarled, lunged, but it was too late. They pinned him, handcuffed him, and dragged him into daylight.
Later that evening, both brothers sat in separate cells. The priest, their father, wept in silence, disrobed from his title, stripped of trust and holiness.
Villagers gathered again—not in fear, but in anger. Flowers and oil lamps were placed at the temple gates—not as offerings, but in memory. Of the girls who would never return.
The temple would remain shut until the courts decided its fate.
For Prasant Sharma, the case was almost over.
Almost.
Because as he stood outside the temple, watching the sun dip behind the hills, a young constable approached with something strange.
“Sir… you asked us to search the sanctum floor. We found a stone slab loose under the idol.”
“And?”
The constable held up an old leather-bound notebook.
It was filled with names.
Dozens. Hundreds.
Some were crossed out.
Some were still waiting.
Last Prayer Before Justice
The monsoon poured without mercy, drenching the earth and erasing footprints across the red soil of Chittakere. But inside the police station, every trace of horror remained—on whiteboards, in files, in memories.
Detective Prasant Sharma sat alone in the evidence room, flipping through the leather-bound notebook found beneath the idol. The names inside weren’t just records—they were lists of girls, possibly victims, possibly survivors. Some were scribbled in neat, confident strokes. Others looked hurried, as if written during moments of panic.
Out of 137 names, 49 were crossed out.
“We’ve matched 19 names to known missing persons reports,” Latha said as she entered. “Most from different parts of India. But some… are foreign. Unregistered tourists.”
“International trafficking confirmed then,” Prasant murmured.
“And the ones not crossed out?”
“We’re contacting families,” Latha replied. “Some girls may still be alive. Maybe in Goa. Maybe abroad.”
He nodded, but the weight in his chest didn’t lift.
Down the corridor, Raghav sat in a solitary cell. He was quiet now, broken in a way even he didn’t understand. The arrogance had drained from his eyes. His hands trembled often.
In another cell, Nandan remained stoic, his back to the world, staring at a crack in the wall as if waiting for it to open and swallow him whole.
The priest, once the revered face of the Sri Mahadeva Jagruti Mandir, had refused food for two days. In the end, he confessed in full: his father had started it during the 1970s under the guise of “correcting immoral women.” Over time, it evolved into organized crime. By the time his sons took over, it had become ritualized horror.
“The sins of silence,” Prasant muttered to himself. “They grow louder than the crimes.”
The press was relentless. National headlines screamed:
“Sanctum of Horror Unveiled in Karnataka Temple.”
“Over 100 Missing Girls Linked to Sacred Trafficking Ring.”
“Divine Disguise: When God Became the Alibi.”
The government ordered a full shutdown of the temple. ASI teams were brought in. The Garbha Griha was to be sealed permanently. Ritual objects stored away. The idols were shifted to a public trust.
Villagers who had once lived under the temple’s shadow now walked taller. Some came forward with testimonies. Others simply cried.
One morning, a girl named Aisha—presumed dead—was found alive in a private villa in North Goa. She had been kept as “staff,” her identity changed, her will broken.
When she saw Prasant, she fell to her knees. “They told me I would never get out.”
“You did,” he said quietly. “And others will too.”
He flew her back to her family in Delhi himself. That night, for the first time in weeks, he slept with the windows open, listening to the rain.
On the seventh morning since the final arrest, Prasant visited the temple one last time.
The structure stood empty. Rain leaked through the broken corners of the roof. The Nandi statue was cracked, the idols gone. A solitary candle still flickered in the underground passage, as if refusing to die.
He walked through the sanctum, boots echoing on the stone, and stopped at the spot where so many had disappeared—where faith had turned into fear.
He lit one final diya. Not for the gods.
For the girls.
Epilogue
Six months later, a memorial was built at the temple site. A plaque bore the names of all identified victims and survivors.
Detective Prasant Sharma received a national award for bravery. He never returned to Chittakere. But he never forgot it either.
For every sanctum that hides darkness, there must be someone willing to step into the shadows—and bring the light back.
