Earlier this month, a ‘suitcase murder’ where a 30-year-old man was allegedly murdered in Pydhonie and stuffed in a suitcase shook Mumbai, bringing back memories of a similar case that had rocked the city more than a decade ago. The crime in 2011 – the murder of a pregnant woman – had come to light after an anonymous phone call to the railway police control room. The subsequent investigation revealed a story of young love, soured relations and a planned murder.
It all began with a call to the Mumbai Railway police control room on March 15. A passenger alerted the police about a suspicious suitcase“containing a bomb” abandoned on platform 1 of Sandhurst Road railway station. The police rushed to the spot along with sniffer dogs, and when the suitcasewas opened, they were shocked to discover a woman’s body inside.
A postmortem examination revealed that the woman had been strangled to death and was also four months pregnant. With similar ‘suitcase murders’ being reported in Delhi and Mumbai around the same time, the investigators were under tremendous pressure to rule out the possibility of a serial killer on the prowl, and multiple police teams started checking the missing persons’ complaints reported in and around Mumbai. The police also checked CCTV footage from railway stations but as there were fewer CCTV cameras then, the move did not yield any results.
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Meanwhile, the news of the pregnant woman’s murder was all over the media. The police were struggling to identify her when two days later, the railway police control room received another phone call. This time, the caller gave the police three important clues: the name of the woman, her husband’s name, and his mobile number.
The clues were a game-changer. The woman was identified as Rehmat Haq, 26, who used to stay in Mumbra along with her husband Parvez Haq. Parvez’s phone was found switched off and no one knew Rehmat in Mumbra. However, Rehmat’s neighbour identified her body from the clothes she was wearing, the police said.
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When the police checked Parvez’s mobile number, it was found to be registered in one of his Byculla-based relative’s names. This relative had no idea about Parvez’s whereabouts but he told the police that Parvez’s younger brother Tabrez studied at an engineering college in Churchgate and stayed in a hostel.
In the next few hours, Tabrez, 21, was detained by the police along with his Govandi-based cousin Abdul Shaikh, 20, on suspicion. Following a thorough interrogation, the police arrested Parvez, a medical student, from Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh.
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When the trio were subjected to sustained interrogation together, they admitted to having killed Rehmat, and alleged that Parvez was the mastermind, the police said.
During interrogation, the police allegedly discovered a story of love and deceit behind Rehmat’s murder. Parvez and Rehmat were neighbours in Bihar’s Motihari district. They fell in love and eloped after six months. After they got married in Delhi, Parvez brought Rehmat to Mumbra where they stayed in a house in Santoshnagar.
However, after a few months, Rehmat discovered that Parvez was already married to a woman named Arshiya, who was from Ratlam, and was also staying in Mumbra in another house. “Rehmat would often fight with Parvez over his first marriage. Frustrated, Parvez would sometimes even beat her. But his frustration and anger went to an extreme, and he decided to murder Rehmat,” a police officer said.
Parvez hatched a plan, according to the police. He sent Arshiya to his mother’s place in MP for a few days and took Rehmat to Arshiya’s house in Mumbra where he, along with his brother and cousin, strangled Rehmat, the police said. They then allegedly stuffed her body into a suitcasethat Parvez had kept ready.
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Later, Parvez’s cousin Shaikh boarded an Ambernath train from Mumbra station. After abandoning the suitcase in the luggage compartment, he alighted after two stations and returned home. The suitcase went to Ambernath on the local train, and on its way back to CST, a drug addict spotted it on the train. He got off the train at Sandhurst railway station along with the suitcase. Hoping to get some valuables inside, the addict was shocked to discover a woman’s body inside and ran away, the police learnt. It was another passenger who alerted the railway police control room.
The police arrested Parvez, his brother Tabrez, and their cousin Shaikh on charges of murder, criminal conspiracy, and destruction of evidence.
The police tried to trace the anonymous caller who gave them the vital clues but later decided not to pursue it, believing that the person could be someone who knew Rehmat and her plight.
