A dispute within a family has helped the city police unravel the mystery behind an ‘undetected’ murder which took place at a grape garden in Mailardevpally in 2001.
The murder of Mohammed Khaja (30), a butcher of Hashamabad in Chandrayangutta, was carried out by the victim’s 70-year-old mother, two brothers-in-law and a friend.
Investigators told The Hindu that dispute in the victim’s family resulted in ‘extra-judicial confession’ by one of them and that was corroborated later. “Recently, an accused informed an outsider about the killing on June 4, 2001, by his own family members,” an officer associated with the investigation said.
On a tip-off, Hyderabad Commissioner’s South Zone Task Force team led by Additional DCP S. Chaitanya Kumar and inspector K. Madhu Mohan Reddy revisited the case, pursuing sheaves of police station records to get more details.
Probe unravelled the mystery, leading to the arrest of three persons — Syed Hasham (48), Khaja’s friend and an auto driver from Vattepally, and brothers-in-law Mohammed Rasheed (48) and Basheer Ahmed Qureshi (48). “His 70-year-old mother, Masooda Bee, who was in her early fifties back then is currently at large,” Hyderabad police commissioner Anjani Kumar said.
Khaja was addicted to alcohol and gambling and used to harass his mother and other family members for money. When they refused to heed to his demands, he converted his house into a gambling den. “Dejected over his behaviour, his family moved to another locality, but he continued to harass them and blackmailed them to sell the house. Vexed, the family members hatched a plan to get rid of him,” he said.
“As per their plan, the arrested person along with the victim consumed toddy at Bandlaguda on June 4, 2001, and took him to Sadamal grape garden, where Khaja was stoned to death,” he said.