The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Police crack 15-year-old case, solve two murders

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Oct 20, 2007
ePaper

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Police crack 15-year-old case, solve two murders

Staff Reporter

Man allegedly kills wife, girlfriend and gives away son

Police also trace the murdered woman’s son
Three employees of accused held for assisting him

— Photo: K. Bhagya Prakash

The law catches up: Police Commissioner N. Achuta Rao presenting (from left) Syed Kaiser Ahmed, Shahul Hameed and Mohammed Abdullah at a press conference in Bangalore on Friday.

BANGALORE: The Central Crime Branch (CCB) has cracked a 15-year-old case involving a 20-year-old woman from the city who was reported missing along with her baby since 1992. It turns out she was killed by her husband, who is also a suspect in another women’s murder.

A decade-and-a-half after the crime, the police traced the murdered woman’s son, Althamish Pasha, now a Class IX student, and reunited him with his maternal grandmother and her family.

Two murders

According to the police, Shahul Hameed (36) of Fraser Town, who owns a furniture shop in Shivajinagar, allegedly murdered his wife Shakeela Banu in December 1992. In 2005, he allegedly strangled a live band artiste, Vinti Seth alias Nikki (28), with whom he had an affair.

Besides Hameed, the police arrested his three employees, Mohammed Rafique (27), Syed Kaiser Ahmed (28) and Mohammed Abdullah (23), who allegedly assisted him in murdering Vinti.

The police said that in 1988, Hameed, a college dropout, fell in love with Shakeela, who was working in a garment factory here. Hameed and Shakeela, who were initially living in a rented house at Milk Colony in Rajajinagar, shifted to Robertsonpet in KGF in 1991 as she was pregnant.

In July 1991, Shakeela gave birth to Althamish. As Hameed used to frequently go to Bangalore, he invited his friend Tamim Ansari from Vellore to stay at his KGF house to look after his wife and child.

In December 1992, Hameed suspected his wife’s fidelity and he allegedly strangled her with Ansari’s help.

The duo buried Shakeela’s body in the backyard of his house in Robertsonpet. He sent the baby, Althamish, to Vellore with Ansari.

Meanwhile, Ansari died in a road accident near Katpadi in 2006, the police said.

Hameed’s story

Hameed relocated to Bangalore and told his parents and Shakeela’s family that she had eloped with another man taking the baby with her.

Meanwhile, during 1994-95, Hameed read in the newspapers the high-profile case of the disappearance of Shakereh Khaleeli who was murdered by Swami Shraddananda and how the police had exhumed her body. Fearing that the police could trace and arrest him, he went to KGF, exhumed his wife’s body, burnt the skeletal remains and threw the ashes in a drain, the police said.

In 1996, Hameed married another woman and he is presently living with her. In 2003, he met Vinti, who was a live band artiste at the Topaz Restaurant on St. Mark’s Road.

He got her a house at Kammanahalli and reportedly promised to marry her.

When Vinti learnt that Hameed was already married, she started pestering him to marry her immediately. Fed up, Hameed and his accomplices allegedly strangled her in 2005 and threw her body into a pond on the Kolar highway.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka