A 24-year-old Muslim man who was found dead with his head dismembered and his hands tied near a railway track last week was reportedly murdered by his girlfriend’s family.
The decapitated body of the victim, Arbaz Aftab Mullah, was found on railway tracks in Khanapur, Belagavi, a city in India on Sept. 28.
"We have found stab injuries in the neck. It was a decapitated body - the head was separated from the body. There were stab injuries over the neck and backside and the hands were tied," a forensic official told The News Minute.
On Thursday, Oct.7, the Belagavi Police arrested 10 persons in connection with the alleged murder.
According to the police, Mullah was killed over his interfaith relationship with a Hindu woman.
Police on Friday said, members of Sri Ram Sene Hindustan — a Hindu extremist group and parents of the Hindu woman have been arrested for allegedly conspiring to murder and brutally killing the young man.
Pundalik Mutagekar, taluk level leader of Sri Ram Sene Hindustan, and Susheela Eerappa Kumbhar and Eerappa Kumbhar — the parents of the girl — are among those arrested.
"The parents of the girl approached Pundalik Mutagekar and offered him money to murder Arbaz Aftab Mullah since they opposed his relationship with their daughter. Arbaz was called to meet the killers on 28 September evening. He was intimidated, money was extorted from him and he was murdered," said the statement.
"His body was put on the railway tracks with the intent of destroying evidence," it added.
Sri Ram Sene Hindustan founder Ramakant Konduskar had said earlier that "his workers are being targeted for upholding Hindutva".
"They have nothing to do with the murder," he said.
Among the 10 people arrested includes Mutagekar’s acquaintances Maruthi Pralhad Sugate, Manjunath Tukaram, Ganapati Gnaneshwara Sugathe, Prashanth Kallappa Patil (aka Birje), Praveen Shankar Poojare, and Sridhar Mahadev Dhoni.
The lone Muslim among those arrested is Qutubuddin Allahbaksh, who police said had played a part in the alleged conspiracy.
Pundalik is believed to have confessed to the police that he and the girl’s father called Arbaaz to Khanapur, and warned him to break up with the girl.
When he refused, they killed him, then chopped his body and dumped him on the railway track, in order to destroy evidence.
The case was registered under sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offense), to be read with section 34 (group of people committing a crime) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The police have now added additional sections for wrongful restraint, criminal conspiracy, among others.
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