79-year-old woman robbed of gold worth Rs 7.5 lakh and killed

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Four people, including a woman, were arrested by the Shahu Nagar police for allegedly killing a 79-year-old woman while committing a robbery at her home on March 22, 2019. The group of robbers had sneaked into Vasanta Lakshminarayan Iyer's home in Matunga in central Mumbai on Tuesday night and committed the crime. They strangled her to death before decamping with ornaments worth Rs 7.5 lakh.

According to the Shahu Nagar police, who is probing the case, the deceased identified as Vasanta Lakshminarayanan Iyer, was staying alone on the ground floor of a four-storey building at Matunga Labour camp. The incident came to light when Iyer's housemaid visited the home on Tuesday evening and found the latter lying inside the flat with a dupatta tied across her neck.

The arrested accused have been identified as Akbar Badshah Shaikh (35), Sameera Akbar Shaikh (34), Mohammed Hasan Javed (25), Mohammed Innul Haq (36). The four accused were residents of Dharavi and Mahim. The accused were nabbed by the Shahu Nagar police soon after the incident took place.

Vikram Meshmane DCP zone 5 told mid-day, "The woman was killed on March 19, by four people, out of which the husband and wife are known to the deceased and two were hired to support them in the crime. The four accused robbed gold ornaments worth Rs 7.5 lakh from her residence."

He further added, "The accused were in need of money and had already planned to kill her and steal the gold from her residence." An officer said that the postmortem report revealed that the woman was strangled to death. All ornaments worn by Iyer were missing. Her cupboard was ransacked. We are trying to get leads from CCTV footage in the area," the officer added.

During the police interrogation, the accused Akbar (taxi driver) revealed that the deceased woman would lend money on interest which he resorted to once. He was out of cash when Iyer asked him to return the money to her. This is why he planned to kill her and had hired two people from Mumbra to execute his plans. Further investigation is underway.

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