Faizal, popularly known as Faizal Bhai had been staring at the front door of house number 140 on the Sinclair Road West London for almost two hours now. He and his partner had strict orders to follow Savarkar and keep notes on what he does, who he meets, where he goes etc.

Roughly around noon, a tall man in a blue suit with a blue turban walked in from the left and knocked on the door. Faizal and his partner tried to figure out who the man was. However, it seemed to them that they haven’t met the person before. Niranjan Pal opened the door and greeted the guest with open arms and a big smile on the face. It was pretty clear from the body language that they knew each other quite well. Faizal scribbled in his diary that Savarkar was not alone in the house, and had Niranjan’s company.

Faizal and his partner decided to come closer to the house and try to find a way to get more information as to what was going on. There was a window at the right side of the house which was partly opened. With no fans in the house, it was indeed a necessity to keep the windows open in summers especially in the month of June. This was a perfect opportunity for the two to hear and possibly see what was happening inside. However, to their disappointment, the window had a curtain that did not allow them to take a peek inside and had to manage with their ears only.

Within a few minutes, they could make out that apart from Savarkar, Niranjan Pal, the man in the blue turban, there was a fourth person. They could clearly hear four different voices, out of which they could recognize Savarkar and Niranjan only.

It looked like a speech was being written for somebody. Not only was it being written but it was also being brainstormed; they could hear phrases like “should we write this? or that?” Some sentences were clearly audible, some wore just murmurs and completely inaudible as if the person writing was just speaking them in his mind. They could clearly hear the line ” if it is patriotic for an Englishman to fight against the Germans if they were to occupy this country, it is much more justifiable and patriotic in my case to fight against the English.”

Faizal kept taking notes of what seemed important to him. So, far nothing was unusual but as soon as they heard the line “it is perfectly justifiable on our part to kill the Englishman who is polluting our sacred land.” they were stunned.

“We do not need a justification for this assassination? Do we?”

The assassination!! Whose assassination and when? Faizal and his partner continued listening and now jotting down everything they could hear. At some point, there were a number of Englishmen discussed including Curzon, Morley, Asquith, William Lee etc. Some of the names were not clear to them.

The discussion stopped and there was silence. Faizal and his partner had absolutely no idea as to what was happening inside. After some time, conversation started again. It was discussions about how Babarao was being sentenced, transported for life and some other stuff.

The meeting continued for another hour or so.

It looked they were saying good bye to each other, one statement that Faizal clearly heard was “Make sure no innocent be it Indian or British is hurt in this process, only the ones in the list are the targets. I mean no innocent!“

This was serious and time sensitive information that was to be delivered as soon as possible to the higher ups in the Scotland Yard. Faizal took a quick decision, asked his partner to take his notes to Chand Muhammad referred to as Mr. C and hand him over right now. He himself stayed there to keep an eye on what happens next. His partner ran across the street, took the bicycle and cycled as if his life depended on it.

In the meanwhile the man with the blue turban came out of the house, again it was Niranjan who showed him out, he hugged him for a few seconds. At this time, Faizal was pretty sure this man is going to do something big.

He decided to follow this man, even though his orders were clear that he has to keep an eye on Vinayak Savarkar.

The man in the turban walked towards the river Thames, and then continued walking parallel to the river eastwards. He was walking at a leisurely pace, did not look at all as if this guy was just planning an assassination some minutes ago. He would sit on the ground, in the grass, stare at the river and then walk again. He was sometimes mumbling some patriotic songs sometimes singing a little louder. He kept walking. He walked for almost three hours and reached the infamous dockyards. The dirty filthy housings where lascars used to live.

Faizal was a little confused at this point, “who is he going to kill here?” None of the people who were discussed during the meeting have anything to do with this lowly place. Nevertheless, he continued following him. After a few more minutes, he saw the man with the blue turban entering one of the poorly built hostel type accommodation.

At this point the only thing Faizal could do was to just wait outside the main gate and let the man in the blue turban do whatever he is doing or meet whoever he is meeting in this building and when he comes out of the building, keep following him.

The man did not come out even after a few hours, Faizal started thinking that either the man lives here or has just arrived from India via the sea. The biggest dilemma for Faizal at this point was his next steps, how does he inform Mr. C. about this? It was past midnight, no movement of anything, pitch dark and there was no sign of the man in the blue turban. Faizal decided to quickly head towards the West India Dock, which was just a couple blocks away, where he knew he could find a way to communicate. He was hopeful of finding a telephone in the the admin office.

Although he was dying of hunger and thirst, but as soon as he entered the administrative block of the dockyard, the stench killed any thought of food in his mind. East of London was by far the poorest and ugliest place in the whole of Britain. He managed to find the office, for which metal door was locked from the inside and the window adjacent to the door also had metal bars on it. He screamed through the metal bars to wake up anybody who was inside the office. After a couple of screams, somebody yelled from the inside, something in Bengali which Faizal did not understand. Faizal claimed that he works for Scotland Yard and needs to use the telephone. The person inside the office tried to get rid of him thinking it is a hoax. But later, Faizal started threating, if he is not allowed to used the phone, there will be consequences. The Bengali speaking person caved in and said he could send a telegram as only a telegraph is available and the telephone is out of order for months now. Faizal gave him the contact details and ask him to send the following message “URGENT: MAN IN THE BLUE TURBAN HIDING AT 312, WESTFERRY ROAD”.

He was hopping that his partner would have already informed Mr. C about the man in the blue turban so he would understand the context of his telegram.

Before the Sun broke the horizon, a dispatch van arrived at 312, Westferry Road. Faizal walked towards the van, told about himself and pointed towards the building. The officer that came out of the van asked Faizal not to leave and stay around as he would be required for the identification purposes.

In the next few hours the place was crowded by metropolitan police force, a few more hansoms (horse cabs) arrived and at least a dozen officers were now busy cordoning the building while a couple dozen other officers were involved in searching the property and asking questions.

They lined up each and every inhabitant of the building, although there were only sixteen rooms in the building but there came out a total of 68 inhabitants. Poverty had forced many of these inhabitants to cram up in a single room. All the sixteen rooms were thoroughly searched to find any clue of the man in the blue turban. All 68 inhabitants were being interrogated.

The interrogation was still ongoing, it was evening now. Some of the inhabitants did confirm that they had seen a man in a blue turban entering and exiting this building not just once the day before but several times on different occasions. Statements like these corroborated Faizal’s tip and helped the police officers regain their trust in the tip provided by Faizal.

In the meanwhile, they received an information that Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie was shot dead by a man in a blue turban.

Continued: Shots Fired!! The Curzon Wyllie assassination