The Jammu Police on Saturday evening claimed that the six members of two different families, who were found dead in two houses in Sidhra on the outskirts of Jammu city on August 16, had entered into a suicide pact and poisoned themselves to deaths.
Four bodies of Noor-ul-Habib, 55, Sakina Begum, 62, widow of Ghulam Hassan, Sajad Ahmed, 17, son of Farooq Ahmed Magray, and Nassema Akhter, 40, were found from a house in lane number 32 and two others-- Rubina Bano, 32, and Zafar Salim, 28, daughter and son of Ghulam Hussain, were found from another house in lane number 33.
The police claimed the deceased were embroiled in litigations, land disputes and had serious health issues that drove them to a suicide pact hatched by Noor-ul-Habib and Sakina Begum with other members of the two families.
Addressing mediapersons here, Jammu district police chief SSP Chandan Kohli, said, “Though post-mortem and viscera samples reports are awaited, we found Noor-ul-Habib had moved to Jammu 25 years back in 1997 and was into consultancy business. Sakina Begum, who hailed from Doda, worked as domestic help with him. They also had medical issues. Sakina’s two children were differently-abled and therefore she depended on Noor-ul-Habib for financial help.”
“Habib afforded all their expenses. Since, they had health issues and faced litigations, had land disputes, they were depressed and planned their suicide,” said the SSP.
{{/usCountry}}“Habib afforded all their expenses. Since, they had health issues and faced litigations, had land disputes, they were depressed and planned their suicide,” said the SSP.
{{/usCountry}}He informed that in the first week of August Habib, Sakina and Sajjad Ali had gone to attend a trial in Doda from where they called a friend over phone and told him that life was not worth living anymore.
“On August 4, Habib first convinced Sakina, Sajjad Ali and Rubina of his plan to commit suicide. Habib also told Sakina that he also doesn’t want to live anymore. We have extracted CDR, bank details and other evidences that substantiate their plan,” he said.
“On August 5, they brought some medicines, cannulas, drips, diapers, IV fluids from a chemist shop in Jammu for the first time. On August 6, they contacted Sanjeev Kumar, a health worker known to them, to their house in Sidhra where they asked Kumar to fix cannulas for the differently abled children Zaffar Salim and Naseema so that multi-vitamins could be administered to them. They (Habib and Sakina) also got cannulas fixed to them on a false pretext of running a fever,” said the SSP.
Kohli said on August 7, Zaffar Salim and Naseema were injected drugs by Habib and that evening they again called Kumar to enquire about their condition whether they improved or not.
“Kumar saw Zaffar and Naseema’s condition deteriorating and advised them to go to a doctor. He wasn’t aware that they were being injected with some drugs and not multivitamins. On August 7, Habib contacted Vijay Kumar, a plumber by profession and disclosed to him that they are going to end their lives asking him to dig a pit for two bodies in the backyard of the house in lane number 33 for which he gave the plumber ₹2.50 lakh cash,” said the official.
On August 9, Vijay Kumar engaged two others to dig a pit. “Vijay Kumar has been arrested and we have seized the cash from him,” said Kohli,
He informed that on August 12, Zaffar Salim and Nasima died.
“On the same day, they planned that Sakina will be infused with drugs. After August 6, the families had disabled CCTV cameras in both houses. ACs temperature was kept very low for slow decomposition of bodies. Fragrance dispensers were there in the two houses to check the foul smell. We also found diapers on all the six bodies to absorb fluids that bodies excreted after death to check the foul smell,” he said.
“According to us, Sakina died on August 14 and then the remaining three--Habib, Sajjad Ali and Rubina, visited a chemist shop to north of Jammu city to purchase more medicines in their Nano car. Via Zomato, they also ordered some food from Pahalwan Sweets in Gandhi Nagar in the afternoon and asked the delivery boy that they had Covid patients so he should wait outside their house,” said the SSP.
“On August 14 evening they again called health worker Sanjeev Kumar to clean and flush their cannulas and our probe suggested that on the morning of August 15 Rubina had died”, said the SSP.
He informed that the health worker was again called for the last time by Habib and Sajjad Ali.
“The two sat in their Nano car and got new cannulas fixed and by August 15 evening we believe Habib and Sajjad Ali had died. On the evening of August 16, we had got a call from Noor’s sister in Barzulla in Srinagar, who had suspected that her brother Habib might have committed suicide,” he said.
The SSP informed that the first death according to the police probe had happened on August 12 and by August 15 evening remaining five had poisoned themselves to death.
“They used schedule H drugs and what were they drug and how they reacted will be known after we get viscera and post-mortem reports,” he said.
He informed that the police have registered cases under sections 302 and 306 of the IPC.
“Plumber has been arrested and booked under section 306. Had he informed the police in time, six lives would have been saved,” said Kohli.
The SSP informed that SIT has also come to know that Noor-ul-Habib had some deadly disease.
“It has to be substantiated yet. The case was very challenging because nothing of this sort had happened before. Yes, they had other options to commit suicide but they chose this way to end their lives. Though things started getting clear to us in the initial three to four days of probe, it took 11 days for us to connect the missing links,” he said.