Two accused of killing 22-year-old in Mangalore arrested in Mumbai

The Mumbai crime branch arrested two people in Bandra for allegedly kidnapping a 22-year-old youth from Mangalore, killing him and dumping his body in Agumbe Ghat around 100 km away from Mangalore city. The police said three more people are wanted in the case and Mangalore crime branch have been looking for them in Mumbai, Gujarat and other parts of the country.

The arrested accused — Faizal Shaikh Ibrahim, 36, and Sahil Ismail Ashraf Ismail, 22 — are from Mangalore and were hiding in Mumbai. Ibrahim is main accused in the kidnapping and murder case. The police said both the accused have been involved in at least 10 to 12 cases of robbery, dacoity, murder and attempt to murder in several cities including Hyderabad, Mangalore and Mumbai.

After they were arrested in Bandra on Sunday, they were produced in a court in Mangalore and remanded in police custody for 10 days. Officials from the Mumbai crime branch said the two were hiding in the city for the past 10 days.

The accused kidnapped Lefty Safwan, 22, on October 5 from Chokkabetu Surathkal area in Mangalore, Karnataka, in a car and kept him in a farmhouse out of the city for two days. They tortured Safwan by assaulting him with a wooden stick. They later killed him and dumped his body in Agumbe Ghat. Safwan’s father Abdul Hameed, who is small businessman, registered a kidnapping case in Suratkal police station after the accused threatened him saying they would kill his son.

Once the investigation started, a police team from Mangalore came to Mumbai last week and unit 9 of the Mumbai crime branch helped them nab the two accused, said joint commissioner Sanjay Saxena of the crime branch.

“The victim allegedly used to pass information of the accused and his gang’s movement to another gang. The accused told the police that the other reason they had kidnapped him was that Safwan had fought with one of the accused’s brother and alleged that accused is homosexual,” said police inspector Sunil Naik of Mangalore city crime branch.

The body was recovered more than 50 days after he was killed. “We searched for the body for five days and finally found it on November 25,” said Naik.

The accused have been booked under sections 363 (kidnapping), 120 B (criminal conspiracy), 201 ( causing disappearance of evidence of offence or giving false information) and 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal code.