Mumbai man arrested for conspiring to attack father of girl who rejected him

Police said they had earlier arrested a man named Sahil Shaikh, 23, who slashed the cheeks of an engineer at Bandra last week. During investigation, they found that Rizwan Shaikh had asked Sahil to attack the engineer because his love proposal to his daughter went unanswered.

Bandra police on Thursday arrested a 22-year-old man named Rizwan Shaikh, for allegedly conspiring to attack a 56-year-old engineer in Bandra (West). According to police, they had earlier arrested a man named Sahil Shaikh, 23, who had slashed the cheeks of the senior engineer at Bandra last week. During the course of the investigation, police found out that there was a possibility that Rizwan had asked Sahil to attack the engineer because his love proposal to the engineer’s daughter went unanswered.

Police also said that when Sahil attacked the victim, Rizwan was watching the whole thing from around 20 metres away. (AFP/Picture for representation)

“Rizwan had sent a message to the engineer’s daughter, who is a physiotherapy student, on a social media site, expressing his love for her. When he did not get an affirmative reply, he believed it was because of her father,” said a police officer on the condition of anonymity. “Rizwan then got in touch with Sahil and conspired to murder the woman’s father.”

Police also said that when Sahil attacked the victim, Rizwan was watching the whole thing from around 20 metres away. “When Sahil slashed the victim, he missed his neck by a few inches. They then fled from the spot as the victim lay injured near Hotel Rangsharda,” the officer said.

Police arrested Sahil within hours and during the interrogation, he lied saying he attacked engineer as he misjudged his identity. “He said he was looking for other people who beat him a few days ago in the same area,” the officer said.

Police interrogated him further and got a tip-off on Rizwan, whom they found knew the daughter of the engineer as they lived in the same area and studied in schools which were close to each other. Police have not taken the statement of the engineer or daughter yet. They are still trying to ascertain the cause of the attack.