Malvani murders: Injured accused helped cops trace trio to Guj

The police traced the trio, who killed a woman and her two grandchildren in Malvani last week, thanks to the injury suffered by one of the accused in the attack. The three accused – Anam Shaikh, 25, her husband Salman Akbar, 26, and Salman Afzal, 22 – were arrested from Gujarat on Saturday.

While attacking Babli Shaw, Afzal suffered a cut to his hand. Police said they found bloodstains on the walls in the alley up to 100m from Shaw’s house. Suspecting that one of the assailants may have been injured, crime branch teams were sent to Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Pune.

After the murders, the accused fled the city and headed to Ajmer.

As Afzal was injured, they decided to stop at Gujarat to get him treated. He was admitted to a local hospital at Valsad.

The crime branch officials alerted the city police about a patient who matched their description, but he got discharged by the time the city team could reach the spot.

Read: Three held from Gujarat for murdering woman, 2 grandchildren in Mumbai

The officers headed to the railway station, where the trio was caught.

Shaikh, a local pimp, got in touch with Shaw, who ran a prostitution business in the slums, nine months ago. She learned that Shaw had sold her ancestral land in West Bengal and planned to use the money for the education of her grandchildren – Aryan, 13, and Sania, 10. When Shaikh told Akbar about it, they came up with a plan to kill Shaw and roped in Afzal too.

“Armed with two razors, the group went to Shaw’s house. Shaikh introduced them as customers. The trio killed her. When the children woke up, they killed them too,” said Shashikant Satav, deputy commissioner of police, crime branch.

The police found blood-stained clothes on the accused. One of the razors bought by the accused was recovered from Babli’s house.

The crime branch handed over the accused to the Malwani police station, where the case of murder was registered.