Ghaziabad: Two women stabbed in 26 hours during sleep, police on lookout for ‘disturbed’ man

Panic has set in the Maharajpur locality in Sahibabad after two women, while they were sleeping, were allegedly attacked with a knife by an unidentified man over a span of 26 hours

Panic has set in the Maharajpur locality in Sahibabad after two women, while they were sleeping, were allegedly attacked with a knife by an unidentified man over a span of 26 hours. Police have beefed up security in the area as they suspect a ‘psychologically disturbed’ man is on the rampage.

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According to police, in both the incidents, the assailant inflicted deep injuries to the faces of two women -- Shahnaz, 32, and Hasnuma Khatoon, 30. While Shahnaz sustained injury to the head in her ground floor house around 3.15pm on Thursday, Khatoon suffered a deep cut near her eye in her house on the third floor of a building around 5pm on Friday, police said, adding that both the victims are out of danger.

Police said that they have registered an FIR under IPC section 307 (attempt to murder) following an assault on Shahnaz, while they lodged an FIR under IPC section 324 (causing hurt by dangerous means or weapons) in the second case. Both FIRs were lodged at Link Road police station.

“The man entered my house quietly, picked up a knife and inflicted injury to my head before fleeing. The knife got stuck in my head. Locals rushed me to a doctor who referred me to a hospital in Vaishali. My husband was out for work when the incident took place,” Shahnaz said.

Her husband Aslam Ansari, an e-rickshaw driver, rushed to the hospital when he got a call about the incident.

“I almost fainted after seeing my wife bleeding profusely. But the doctors at the hospital pulled out the knife. I had left my house at 3.08pm as per the footage from a nearby CCTV camera. Nearly 15 minutes later, the assailant arrived and stabbed my wife,” he added.

The family is from Banka district in Bihar.

The second victim, Khatoon, a native of Madhepura in Bihar, is scared and not stepping out of her house. “I was sleeping in the bedroom when I felt a sharp pain. I thought that my children might have hurled something. Soon, I realised that it was a deep cut to my face with a knife... I could see the assailant fleeing. He had brought the knife with him and left it in my house,” Khatoon added. “I was taken to a doctor. At the clinic, people told me about the similar incident a day before. I am very scared now.”

Mohammad Makhdoom Alam, Khatoon’s husband, said that the assailant tried to inflict deep injury before fleeing the spot. The couple stays in the house along with their two sons aged five and seven years.

Police said they initially suspected some personal rivalry in the first case, but after the second similar incident in the same locality, they changed the line of investigation.

“We suspect that the same unidentified man seen in the CCTV footage could be the assailant in both the cases. In both incidents, he assaulted the women when they were sleeping. It seems that the man is psychologically disturbed and he did not want to kill them. The two houses are located within a distance of about 250 metres. We have formed five teams to nab the suspect,” said Gyanendra Kumar Singh, superintendent of police (city 2).

The officials said that they have deployed policemen in plain clothes in the area and have also roped in informers to trace the suspect. “We are trying to trace the suspect. All the CCTV cameras in the area are being scanned,” said an officer from Link Road police station.