Days after a 24-year-old Muslim man’s decapitated body was found on a railway track in Karnataka’s Belagavi district, 10 people, including the parents of a woman he was in a relationship with, were arrested for his murder on Friday. Police first registered a case of unnatural death when Arbaz Mullah’s body was found on September 28. Later a murder case was filed on the basis of his post-mortem report and the nature of injuries to his head.
The Belagavi Police said the woman’s parents, Eerappa and Susheela Kumbhar, and Maharaja Nagappa alias Pundalik Mutgekar, a member of Hindu group Sri Ram Sena Hindustan, are the prime suspects in the murder.
In a statement, police added the parents opposed the woman’s relationship with Mullah and approached Nagappa to end it. But the woman remained adamant. Police said the parents met Nagappa multiple times and when Mullah refused to end the relationship, they threatened him. As the threats did not work, Nagappa allegedly hired seven contract killers to kill Mullah on September 28. The killers dumped his body on the railway tracks.
The arrests come after Mullah’s family complained about the delay in the investigation. In her complaint to the police, Mullah’s mother, Nazeema Mohammad Sheikh, accused the woman’s family of murdering her son to end the relationship.
“We knew about the relationship, and I had spoken to the woman’s mother to ensure she does not meet him. I also told my son not to meet her. I shifted from Khanapur to Azam Nagar in Belagavi with my son. But the two continued to meet, and we started getting threats from her family,” Sheikh said.
{{/usCountry}}“We knew about the relationship, and I had spoken to the woman’s mother to ensure she does not meet him. I also told my son not to meet her. I shifted from Khanapur to Azam Nagar in Belagavi with my son. But the two continued to meet, and we started getting threats from her family,” Sheikh said.
{{/usCountry}}A protest was held in Belagavi on Monday against the police inaction.
The seven other suspects arrested are the alleged contract killers. They have been identified as Maruti Pralhad Sugathe, Manjunatha Thukaram Gondali, Ganapathi Jnaneshwara Sugathe, Prashanth Kallappa Patil, Praveena Shankara, Qutubuddin and Shreedhara Mahadeva Doney.
The accused have been booked under the Indian Penal Code’s Sections 302 (murder), 201 (destruction of evidence ), 341 (wrongful restraint), 120 B (criminal conspiracy), 384 (extortion ), and 149 (unlawful assembly).