E-Paper
Meerut horror follow-up: Key suspect missing hours before bodies of family members were found
Police said the mason’s stepbrother has been missing since Thursday morning; two other named suspects already in police custody
The stepbrother of mason Mohd Moin, is the key suspect in the gruesome murders of Moin, 35, his wife Aasma, 33, and the couple’s three daughters, aged between 8 and one year, whose bodies were found in the bed box of their rented room.
The one-room house was found locked from the outside in the Sohail Garden locality, under the Lisarigate police station limits of Meerut on Thursday night, senior police officials said on Friday.
Meerut zone, additional director general (ADG) of police, Dhruv Kant Thakur, said that the key suspect is Moin’s stepbrother, Naeem, who stayed with the family till late in the night on Wednesday and has been missing from his house since Thursday morning.
He said that Mohd Shamim, the brother of the deceased, Aasma, however, has lodged an FIR of murder under BNS section 103 (1) against Moin’s elder brother, Salim, Moin’s younger brother Amjad’s wife, Nazrana, and Moin’s stepbrother, Naeem, and other unidentified persons in the matter.
Amjad and another younger brother Aziz are in jails for different crimes in Delhi and Roorkee respectively, he added.
The ADG further stated the crime scene examination suggested that the crime was committed by more than one person, and they were familiar with the family as the one room house shows no signs of forced entry.
Moreover, it is suspected that the family members were sedated before being killed. Four of them, including the couple and their two daughters, Afsha (8 years), Aziza (4 years) were murdered by hitting hard on the head with an iron rod multiple times, while the younger daughter, Adiba (1 year) was strangulated. He stated the condition of the bodies and no foul smell emanating from it hinted that they were murdered after Wednesday midnight when they were sleeping.
He said two of the three named accused, Salim and Nazrana, have already been taken into police custody for interrogation, but Naeem is at large since Thursday morning, much before the crime was discovered at around 8.30 pm.
Meerut senior superintendent of police (SSP) Vipin Tada said that efforts are on to arrest Naeem and a clear motive for the crime would be ascertained only after his arrest.
Another police official, privy to the investigation, said that Nazrana is one of the suspects as she had borrowed ₹4.5 lakh from Moin, which he borrowed from Aasma’s brother Shamim. He said Nazrana’s husband, Amjad, who worked as driver is lodged in Delhi central jail after he was arrested for providing a rented room to some criminal elements on his identity card.
He said Amjad and Moin had bought a property in the Sohail Garden area around 1.5 years ago.
He said Amjad bought a built house while Moin purchased a small plot adjacent to the house. He said Amjad’s family shifted to Meerut house from their native place in Shahjahanpur around five months ago while Moin shifted to a rented house in Meerut and started building his house around 1.5 months ago. The linter roof of Moin’s house was constructed on Wednesday.
He said Salim, who also stays with his family nearby, is under suspicion as he was the person who first raised the alarm about the disappearance of the family. He said Salim was the first to enter the house after breaking the locks and discovering the bodies of the couple lying in the room. He was the one who specifically asked other people to open the bed box in which the bodies of the couple’s three daughters were placed.
He said Naeem is the key suspect as he has been missing since Thursday morning, and he also stayed with Moin’s family on Wednesday night. He said Moin’s brother-in-law (husband of Aasma’s sister), Ashraf, is also among the suspects as he also stayed at Moin’s house till late at night. He said Moin trusted Ashraf, who is also a mason, and together they constructed the linter roof of the house of the deceased family.
