Ghaziabad: Two years on, woman helps cops arrest father for mother’s murder
Police said Firdaus had a plot worth about ₹15 lakh in Mirzapur, Vijay Nagar, and Intezar wanted it sold, but Firdaus resisted his attempts to sell it
More than two and a half years after her mother went missing on November 1, 2021, a 20-year-old woman helped the crime branch of the Ghaziabad police arrest her father and several of his accomplices on charges of abducting and murdering the woman and dumping her body in Rabupura, Gautam Budh Nagar, senior police officers said on Thursday.
The crime branch on Thursday arrested three people and identified them as the woman’s husband Mohammad Intezar, 49, Mohammad Parvez, 29, and Intezar’s nephew Shadab Khan, 26.
The police said seven persons were involved in the crime and a hunt is on to trace the remaining suspects.
Police said Intezar was married to the victim, Firdaus, who was aged 39 at the time she went missing, and the couple had five children, including three daughters.
Police said Firdaus had a plot worth about ₹15 lakh in Mirzapur, Vijay Nagar, and Intezar wanted it sold, but Firdaus resisted his attempts to sell it.
“This led to Intezar subjecting Firdaus to domestic abuse frequently and he even misbehaved with their teenaged daughters. Firdaus also filed a case for attempt to murder, domestic violence, etc., against her husband and in-laws and there was pressure from her in-laws to withdraw the case. But she did not. On November 1, 2021, Firdaus went to the local school to pick up her youngest daughter and disappeared before she reached the school,” said an investigator from the crime branch, asking not to be named.
Intezar filed a missing person report at Vijay Nagar on November 2, 2021. Although police formed teams to probe the case, Firdaus could not be found. However, in a renewed attempt about a week ago, the crime branch reached Mirzapur and got to know that Intezar got married again, without waiting for his missing wife to return.
“The team reached out to one of his daughters, Fiza, who got married on her own about a month after her mother went missing. Initially, she did not cooperate but later she disclosed that nearly a month after her mother went missing, she heard her father and suspect Shadab saying that it was a job well done by the hired assailants. They also discussed where the body was dumped. Fiza told her sister about this but they both kept silent as they feared that they too would be killed,” the investigator said.
On the basis of Fiza’s statement, the police picked up the suspects and they revealed the entire conspiracy and also disclosed that Firdaus was abducted and strangled to death in a planned conspiracy.
“The assailants dumped the body at an isolated place in Rabupura and fled. When the police contacted the police in Rabupura, their records showed that the body of a Muslim woman (identified by her clothes) was recovered by the local police on November 14, 2021, from the same spot. The DNA of the victim was preserved and it will now be sent for further forensic analysis,” said Abdul Rehman Siddiqui, inspector, crime branch.
Police said Intezar got his nephew Shadab involved in the conspiracy and he contacted his friends Sohail alias Sonu, who demanded ₹5 lakh for the job, which Intezar agreed to pay.
Sonu then roped in his accomplices Parvez, Naushad Ali, Arshad and Tauseen, police said.
“The five men picked up Firdaus in their Wagon-R car on November 1, 2021, and strangled her with the seat belt. Then, they drove towards Rabupura and dumped her body in a dry drain near the road going towards Rustampur,” said Rajesh Kumar, deputy commissioner of police (city).
“Intezar told us during interrogation that he sold his plot of land for ₹11 lakh and paid a part of the money to the hired killers,” the DCP said.