Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Oct 21: In a gruesome murder, an Imam of a Masjid has confessed of murdering a man by pushing him into river Jehlum aiming to marry his wife with whom he had “illicit relationship”.
Police said the Imam, Mohammad Amin Naik, son of Abdul Gani Naik of Chimmer, Kulgam,who is married with five children, had conspired with the wife of one Shahnawaz Ahmad Dar of Bund Qamarwari, to “marry her”.
Senior Superintendent of Police Ashiq Bukhari told reporters here that the accused Naik and Dar’s wife executed the plan of the murder when Naik told Dar to perform a prayer in the evening to assuage Dar’s strained relations with his wife.
Bukhari said the murder was executed on the evening of September 29 when Naik had asked Dar to recite some religious verses at Qamarwari Cement Bridge, wearing a cloak (pheran) so that sunlight doesn’t fall on his hands, and he should look straight into the waters of the Jehlum.
The SSP said as Dar was performing, Naik came behind and pushed Dar into the river, whose gushing water took his body to Maloora in the outskirts of the Srinagar city.
“Dar’s father-in-law, Noor Mohammad Khanday, had filed a missing report on September 30 at Police Station Qamarwari saying his son-in-law had gone to a mosque to offer Isha prayers but didn’t return home. And then police started searching for him and retrieved his body on October 3,” Bukhari said.
Soon, police started investigations to know the cause of his drowning. “Police found an identity card in the pheran that belonged to the accused Naik, who was a mullah in Masjid Abu-Turab at Band Qamarwari, he said.
“Later, Naik identified that the Pharen belonged to him, thus, police put him to repeated questioning in which he confessed that he has developed illicit relations with the wife of deceased and Dar was a hindrance in their relation. It also came to fore that Naik used to visit the house of in-laws of deceased number of times a day,” the SSP said.
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