QCrime: Headley to Testify, DU Student Found Murdered, and More

Read the top crime stories round-up on Qcrime.

David Headley, an accused in the Mumbai 26/11 terrorist attack (Photo Courtesy: Next Big What)

1. David Headley to Depose Before Court Via Video

Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Taiba operative David Headley will, for the first time, testify before a Mumbai court on Monday through a video conference, reports The Times of India.

Headley has been been made an approver in the 26/11 attacks case which may further unravel the conspiracy behind the brazen terror strike.

The court is currently trying key plotter of the 26/11 attacks, Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal.

This is for the first time in Indian legal history that a ‘foreign terrorist’ will appear before an Indian court and testify.

<b>Ujjwal Nikam, Special Public Prosecutor</b>

A Mumbai police official said Headley can reveal more details about the conspiracy and all those who were involved in the attacks. The terror strike in the country’s commercial capital in 2008 had left 166 dead and 309 injured.

“He may also bare the role of Pakistan,” the official said.

The court had in December 2015 made Headley an approver and directed him to depose on February 8.

2. Delhi University Student Found Murdered, Friend Arrested

The body of Arzoo Singh, a 21-year-old female student of Delhi University who had gone missing a few days ago, was recovered on Sunday.

Arzoo Singh’s body was recovered from a shaft at her friend’s residence in a semi burnt condition in the Model Town area of North Delhi, police said. The friend has been arrested.

The matter came to light after some residents of the area complained to police about some unpleasant smell coming from the house of the accused who has been identified as 22-year-old Naveen Khatri.

Naveen allegedly married another woman, two days after abducting and murdering Arzoo.

According to The Indian Express, preliminary investigation has revealed Khatri and Aarzoo Singh, who studied in Lakshmibai College, were to marry, but it was called off around four months ago. However, both of them kept in touch with each other even as Khatri’s family arranged his marriage elsewhere.

He allegedly abducted her from the college on February 2, two days before his marriage, and strangled her with a shawl near IGI airport. He brought the body back to his house in his car’s trunk after failing to burn it, and hid it in the shaft at his house in Gurmandi locality.

Senior Police Officer

Police said, Khatri admitted during questioning that he had killed her.

3. Attack on Tanzanian Student Exposes Deep Racial Divides

Chikkabanavara is less than 20 km from Bangalore city but lives in two worlds that are continents apart.

“They removed her top…. Only her jeans were intact,” Aziz Ali told The Telegraph, listing each layer of clothing that was allegedly removed.

Ali was in the same car when a fellow-Tanzanian student was dragged out and assaulted by a mob a week ago, soon after a car driven by a Sudanese student mowed down a woman.

A little over a kilometre away, the other continent comes into view.

I don’t agree that the girl was stripped. They hardly wear anything to be stripped. These people create havoc. Their women dress in revealing clothes, which is against our culture. They drink and drive, do drugs and party late into the night. I’ve heard about these things but I have seen them drag race.

<b>Farooq, relative of deceased woman</b>

Farooq is related to Shabana Taj, the 35-year-old lady who was mowed down by the Fiat Linea— the flashpoint that triggered the assault on Ali and her friend who passed by in a Wagon R later. The Fiat Linea, a sedan, does not resemble a Wagon R, a hatchback with a tallboy design.

Fraught with mistrust and handicapped by the absence of any initiative to reach out or comprehend each other’s sensibilities — Chikkabanavara appears to be in danger of becoming a flagrant flashpoint instead of a melting pot.

Read the full story on The Telegraph.

4. CBI to Probe Ryan International School Drowning Case

The Delhi government will recommend a CBI probe into the death of Devyansh Kakrora of Ryan International school due to alleged shortcomings in the ongoing police probe, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said on Sunday.

Hindustan Times reported that a magisterial investigation, into the tragic death of the student on January 30, ordered by the Delhi government into the case said that “deliberate” inaction by the school authorities amounted to “gross criminal negligence” which led to the death of six-year-old Devyansh.

We will definitely recommend CBI probe into the death of Divyansh. We can see shortcomings in the ongoing probe. Divyansh’s parents levelled serious allegations

<b>Manish Sisodia, Deputy Chief Minister</b>

Sources said the final announcement about the CBI probe was not made because Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal was out of Delhi. Devyansh’s father, Ramhet Meena said the probe should begin at the earliest because any delay would lead to manipulation of evidence.

5. Wanted Gurgaon Gangster Injured in A Shootout

Sandeep Gadoli, a dreaded gangster from Gurgaon charged with a string of murders, was seriously injured in a shootout in Mumbai on Sunday.

According to The Hindustan Times, Gadoli opened fire at two Gurgaon Police constables when they arrived at a hotel in east Mumbai’s Andherisuburb around 11 am to arrest the gangster. All three injured people have been admitted to hospital.

Gadoli carried a cash reward of Rs 1.25 Lakh on his head and was wanted in connection with several murders. He had 36 cases registered against him. His aide, Sonu, was arrested last year in Mumbai for sexually harassing a model in Bandra.

6. Mentally Disturbed Man Allegedly Beaten to Death by Police in West Bengal

A mentally disturbed man was allegedly beaten to death by the police in the Ranitala area of West Bengal’s Murshidabad district.

40-year-old Kanchan Seikh who is a resident of the Bhagwangola area, is said to have wandered into Ranitala, about seven km away, on Thursday morning.

Swapan Sanyal, local human rights activist and central committee member of the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights(APDR) told The Hindu:

A patrolling team of the Ranitala police station spotted him and questioned him. As the police personnel were not satisfied with his answers, they brutally assaulted him. Mr. Seikh died in a local hospital on Friday night.

Sanyal alleged that the police personnel dumped the “severely injured” Mr. Seikh near a roadside bush after assaulting him where he remained there for the rest of the night. On Friday evening, his family members found him.

Seikh used to run a shop before he was diagnosed with psychiatric problems two years ago. He is survived by wife, two sons and a daughter.

C Sudhakar, SP of Murshidabad, termed the reports “false.”

APDR’s State vice-president, Nilanjan Dutta said deaths owing to police torture were on the rise in West Bengal in recent years.

7. Missing Boy’s Body Exhumed in Pune, Hunt on for Mother

Police are looking for a 40-year-old woman and her friend after the body of her 15-year-old son was exhumed on Sunday from a house they stayed in on the outskirts of Pune.

The body of Nicholas alias Nikku was found in a joint operation by the Pune and Delhi Police.

The woman’s father, who lives in Delhi, had been looking for his grandson, Nicholas for the past six months and had lodged a police complaint in December when he was told by her daughter’s friend that Nicholas had committed suicide.

The woman was identified as Varita alias Ritu, 40 and her friend Yunus Ali are on the run. Nicholas studied in Class IX in Sona Modern Public School, Khanpur, while in Delhi. Police said he hadn’t been enrolled in any school in Pune.

On Sunday morning, the police team reached the house and broke open the door. Upon digging the floor, police found Nicholas’s remains dumped in a pit measuring 6X3 feet under the floor, that was made of tiles. It was exhumed in the presence of panch witnesses. The body had decomposed badly.

<b> Sudhir Hiremath, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone IV)</b>

The exact cause of death of the boy will be established after autopsy, he added.

Varita and Ali have been booked for kidnapping, murder and conspiracy, along with other sections relating to destruction of evidence of a crime.

Read the full story on The Indian Express.

8. Death of a Seventh Grader Exposes Bizarre Surveillance Slip

A 12-year-old student of Sapphire International School in Ranchi , Binay Kumar Mahto was found bludgeoned to death on the porch of the Teachers’ Hostel. But this incident has exposed a bizarre surveillance slip and prompted the police to mull a security advisory for all cradles.

Above the teachers’ hostel front porch, where the seventh grader was found dead and battered early on Friday,

Police have spotted an Android phone keeping vigil from the first-floor balcony of the Teachers’ Hostel instead of one of the many closed-circuit television cameras that the elite cradle boasts, reports The Telegraph.

Never in my career did I see such shoddy surveillance, that too at a reputable institution. In fact, night-time video is just a grainy, blank screen. No amount of technical support can improve quality

Investigation officer

A CCTV camera inside the boys’ hostel had recorded a 30-second video on Friday that had showed a barefoot Binay walking out at 1.09am, around half an hour before he was found dead 750 metres away.

Since no surveillance camera is installed outside the students’ hostel, police are groping in the dark on why and how the boy reached the teachers’ residential building.

9. Woman, Minor and 3 Others Arrested For Hyderabad Murder

Police has arrested five people, including a woman and a minor boy, for allegedly beating a 30-year-old man to death at Chikkadpally in Hyderabad.

The victim who has been identified as Mohd Shafi, had entered a hut at Bapuji Nagar in an inebriated condition on February 3 midnight. He was murdered by the suspects, who mistook him for a sexual predator.

Deccan Chronicle reported that Police Shafi wanted to go to his lover’s hut but had mistakenly entered a neighbour’s hut as he was drunk where the suspects beat Shafi with bricks, an iron rod and tied him to a gate with a rope suffocating him to death.

The suspects were identified as Damodhara Annavaram, 56, a rag picker,  his wife Damodhara Bhavani, 33, his neighbours Md. Anwar Pasha, 30, a rag picker, Shaik Naseer, 31, and his 14-year-old son. The last three people are relatives of Shafi’s lover, cops said.