Police cracks a mysterious murder, accused wife & paramour arrested

Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir police solved a murder case and arrested the wife of a deceased and her paramour in Srinagar, a police spokesman said Saturday evening.
He said  an intensive and painstaking investigation by police team led by SHO Nowgam  Showket Ahmad Shah cracked the murder of one Abiroo Shafi Bhat of Khwajapora, Nowgam, by his wife and her paramour moulvi on the intervening night of March 10, 2018.
The wife, Asifa, daughter of Mohammad Abdullah Dar of Aloochi Bagh, had on the morning of  March 11 called her brother-in-law, who lives next door and told him, “your brother (Aap ka Bai Jaan) is not waking up from sleep.” She had also ringed up her parents and father-in-law who live nearby. The couple and their seven-year-old daughter lived separately & on the fateful night, the child was left with her maternal grandparents at Aloochi Bagh.
The family buried Abiroo Shafi believing that he had died of natural causes. Many ascribed it to heart attack although he had no history of heart ailment or any major disease. Neither doctor was called in nor was Abiroo taken to hospital. But those who performed the last ablution and the family members, who were present at the time of ablution said that the body had become very stiff and was unusually cold. They had noticed some marks on the neck but could not suspect any foul play.
However, family members and those who came to console with the family began asking various questions regarding the sudden & untimely death of Abiroo.
On May 14  Bhat, the father of the deceased filed a complaint with the police station Nowgam suspecting foul play in the death of his son. On the basis of this complaint, police station Nowgam started inquest proceedings under section 174 CrPC.
During proceedings, the family requested Deputy Commissioner Srinagar for exhumation of the body. On May 26, 2018, a team of forensic experts from the forensic department of the Government Medical College Srinagar and doctors from health department exhumed the body and conducted the autopsy. Although the final report is yet to be received but the initial findings revealed that the prima facie cause of death is strangulation.
The police then accordingly registered a case FIR No. 52/2018 under 302 RPC and started investigation that was led by SHO Police Station Nowgam  Showkat Ahmad Shah.
The police called Moulvi Tanveer for questioning. Initially he denied everything and the call records of the SIM he was using did not yield much information. Neither did the phone of Asifa, the wife of deceased that she had been using yield anything significant.
However, a few days before his murder, the deceased had passed a certain phone number to his cousin and asked him to fetch its details. The cousin shared the same number with the police, which was traced to Moulvi. Further investigation revealed that the wife of the deceased had been using the SIM of one Suhail of Lelhar Pulwama, who happens to be the cousin of Moulvi. This SIM card was provided to her by Moulvi and she used it to communicate with her marital and maternal homes. Moulvi after the murder had gone into hiding and the duo had changed their SIM cards. Moulvi had obtained a new SIM card in the name of one Rouf Sadiq of Nowgam for ease of communication with the lady.
Finally, when Moulvi was arrested, he confessed to the crime. The police recovered a broken cellphone which the wife of deceased had thrown out from the window of the house of her brother-in-law where the family was mourning. Another broken phone was recovered near her parents’ house in Aloochibagh. These were the phones she had been using to communicate with her paramour and also one Mobile phone was recovered from the possession of paramour Moulvi.
During investigation it came to the fore that Asifa wife of deceased was caught red handed by her husband while talking to Moulvi on phone, a day before he gave the number to one of his cousins for fetching details. The wife feeling annoyed  & angered at this behavior, proceeded to her maternal home and called up Moulvi. The duo hatched conspiracy to kill Abiroo Shafi and as per plan the wife kept her minor girl child at maternal home. The murder plan was executed between 2400 hrs and 0030 hrs on the night of March 10 after the wife gave a glass of milk stupefied with sedatives to the deceased. The Moulvi jumped over the wall of the house and entered inside the room through a window, which had been left open by the wife of deceased.  When Abiroo was in deep slumber and too sedated to resist, Moulvi strangulated him with the assistance of deceased’s wife Asifa. The moulvi stayed in the house till early morning before jumping out of the same wall. He took train from Nowgam railway station for his home at Pulwama.
In their confession, the two accused said they were planning to marry and had been in relationship for more than a year. Both of them have been arrested, spokesman said.