NOIDA/GHAZIABAD: Abdul Saleem alias Islam “died” on February 21, 2002. His siblings recognised his charred body by the clothes and shoes he had
been wearing. Four years later, the “dead” man was arrested by Delhi police under the Arms Act - even as his neighbour was serving a jail term for “murdering” him.
The bizarre crime where a murderer sought to escape punishment by “posing” as the victim was unearthed by Noida police on Tuesday when Islam was arrested under the NDPS Act for possessing narcotics and according to police sources, confessed to the murder of his friend Zakir during the interrogation. Police officers said he told them that he had burnt Zakir to death and put his own clothes on the dead body. He then got his siblings to file his own “murder case” and name his neighbour Shamshad.
Shamshad, a resident Kallugarhi in Massoori police station area of Ghaziabad had to stay in jail for three years and two months, in two stints. He was eventually granted bail by the Allahabad High Court but Noida police made no attempts to withdraw the murder case even after Islam was arrested in 2006 by Delhi Police and the latter had, as per norms, informed their Noida counterparts about the arrest.
Massoori police chief, PK Singh, said, “This is an old case. I can hardly comment on this. But I believe that Islam had lived with Zakir for while and then relations between them soured. And, this why Islam murdered Zakir.”
Asked for his version on the matter, then Massoori police station chief Om Prakash Singh, who is currently posted ain Garhmukteshwar in Ghaziabad district, said, “It is an old case. I remember that a partially burnt and unrecognizable body was found near the Dasna bus stand. Then, on February 26, Islam’s two sisters and a brother, all of them from Kallugarhi, claimed to have recognized the body by the clothes and shoes. They also named Shamshad as an accused, in a report. I do not know what happened after that.”
Shamshad’s nephew, Arshad, told this correspondent, “Delhi Police personnel came to our house, with Islam. Shocked beyond words to see a dead man alive, about a hundred of our neighbours rushed to the Massoori police station. But, nobody listened to us. And, we were chased away with lathis.”
He said Shamshad, father of 5 children aged between 10 months to 11 years, sold his house to pay for his trial and has, since his release, been unemployed. His 11 year old son studies in class II as his schooling got interrupted several times. His daughter died of dengue while he was in jail.
Police said Islam had, in 1984, been arrested for committing a murder in Baghpat, his native town. Then, for some years, he moved to Loni in Ghaziabad and then to Dasna to live with Zakir, whom he later allegedly burnt alive. After murdering Zakir, he went to Kolkata for a brief while but soon returned to western UP.
Prosecution proceedings against Shamshad are still on in the Ghaziabad sessions court. The SHO of Noida’s Sector 58 police station, Dharmendra Kumar, who happened arrested Islam for carrying narcotics, and later learnt that he was “officially dead”, said, “We just happened to arrest Islam. And, then, during interrogation, he told us of his own ‘murder.’ Now, the Ghaziabad police have to book his relatives for their role in the impersonation, and suppression of evidence.”
For Shamshad meanwhile, his travails are far from over. “There is even now an arrest warrant in my name and this is because I could not go for one hearing.”
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Source: TOI
