12 January,2018 11:00 AM IST | Mumbai | Anurag Kamble
Contract killers Firasat Ali Allarakha Shah and Irshad Ali Allarakha Shah in custody
The MRA Marg police have unearthed what was until now the perfect murder. They have arrested a 60-year-old cloth vendor and two contract killers for the murder of the former's husband 12 years back. On May 14, 2006, a torso was found in a plastic bag at Mastan Talao, Cross Road, Nagpada. The JJ Marg police had registered a case under sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) of the IPC against unknown persons. But the identity of the deceased could not be ascertained and the case had remained undetected.
Dr Manojkumar Sharma, DCP (zone I), shows a picture of the victim
A tip-off
Recently, the police received a tip-off, which led them back to the case. "Our officers received specific information about the involvement of two cloth vendors in a brutal murder 12 years ago. We were told the duo had chopped off the limbs of a man and beheaded him after the murder," said a senior officer.
Kisan Kharwa
The police began to investigate whether a murder had taken place in South Mumbai, especially in Nagpada or surrounding areas then. While checking records, they came across an undetected murder case, in which only a torso had been found in Mastan Talao, Nagpada. "As we found the information we had received was true, we started tracing the murderer," the officer added.
Cornering cloth vendors
A team was formed to trace the two cloth vendors at Chindhi Galli, Bhendi Bazaar, where thousands of vendors come to sell old clothes every day between 4 am and 9 am. After questioning more than 500 vendors, the police came across two who seemed suspicious. They detained them and started interrogating them.
"Firasat Ali Allarakha Shah, 48, and Irshad Ali Allarakha Shah, 43, were detained and questioned. They confessed to murdering a person from Nagpada. We then questioned a 60-year-old woman, Bansiben Kharwa, about her husband, as per their information. She claimed her husband was missing for the past 12 years and didn't have a clue about him," said another officer.
Wife confesses
Bansiben and her husband Kisan were also cloth vendors at Chindhi Galli. A senior officer said, "While the killers were admitting to the murder after getting a contract from Bansiben, she claimed that her husband was missing and she had also reported this to a police station." A special team headed by a female police inspector then spoke to the woman, who confessed to the crime under sustained interrogation," said the officer.
"We have arrested the two vendors and Bansiben. She had given R2 lakh to the two men, who had spiked his tea and then killed him. Kisan used to get drunk and beat up his kids and wife frequently. Bansiben was tired of the harassment and decided to end it all," said DCP (zone I) Dr Manojkumar Sharma.
Senior Inspector Sukhlaal Varpe and his team carried out the investigation, nabbing the accused. "Both contract killers had murdered a colleague in New Delhi in 1996, and were arrested but got bail eventually. They then fled and hid in Mumbai, working as cloth vendors. All the accused have been handed over to JJ Marg police," said Varpe.
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