On Monday, the Uttar Pradesh Police arrested five members of a family for brutally murdering a nine-year-old girl in a wheat field in Pilibhit. The five accused have been identified as Anees, Shadad, Shehzada, Saleem, and Naseem. The victim girl was the daughter of Anees, the niece of Shadab, Saleem, and Naseem, and the granddaughter of Shehzada.
All five accused were arrested by the Police in the murder case and also for providing falsified information during the investigation.
According to the reports, the girl was murdered by her father and other family members to falsely implicate their rival, a person named Shaqil in the murder case. The girl was initially given sleeping pills and then taken to the wheat fields to execute the murder. The police stated that all five accused confessed to the crime during interrogation and were sent to jail.
“The Class 3 student was found dead on December 3 with her abdomen cut open and visceral organs coming out. An FIR has been lodged against the girl’s father, three uncles, and grandfather under IPC sections 302 (murder), 120B (criminal conspiracy), and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of the offence, or giving false information to screen offender). The culprits have been sent to jail,” SHO (Amaria), Mukesh Shukla said.
The girl’s father initially had claimed that she had gone with her uncle Shadab to attend a religious function in a nearby village, Sarainda Patti and has been missing. However, the Police suspected the family members after witnesses at the Sarainda Patti noted that the girl was taken away by Shadab and his brothers and her father.
The reason behind the murder is believed to be family enmity. “The girl’s father, Anees Ahmad from Madhopur village, had an old enmity with Shaqil dating back to 2018 when the former’s younger brother Shadab Ahmad had eloped with the latter’s sister and subsequently married her against the family’s will,” the SP Dinesh Kumar Prabhu was quoted saying.
He added that an FIR was also lodged against Shadab under IPC section 376 (rape) and that the matter was still pending at the Court. “Suspecting foul play, the five accused were taken into custody and they confessed to the gruesome murder during interrogation. We have recovered the murder weapon, brick, and wrapper of sedative pills from the spot”, the SP stated.
According to the SP, Shadab took the child to a neighbouring village, Sarainda Patti, under the guise of attending a religious ceremony. Following that, he led her to an orchard, where he was joined by Anees, his two younger brothers, Naseem and Saleem, and their father, Shahzada. The SP also confirmed that the victim was given sedatives before the murder and was hidden under a heap of paddy straw. The accused then returned home and pretended that the girl had mysteriously gone missing. As per the reports, the accused men also pretended to search for the girl.
“All five men again went to the spot, smashed her head with a brick, and stabbed her with a knife. The accused fled the spot after mutilating the girl and dumping her, trying to create the impression that someone had cruelly killed her,” the Police were quoted.
Later, the accused men claimed they had discovered the missing girl after several hours. However, the girl was still alive, so they wasted approximately half an hour asking her about who attacked her instead of getting her to a nearby medical institution, which resulted in her death. The accused also shot a video of the girl and registered an FIR against Shaqil. They also posted the video online and made it viral over social media. However, the Police confirmed that the video captured by the accused of questioning the victim was fake. “The girl was bewildered and so was unable to name anyone. The video the accused took of the questioning was a ruse,” the Police said.
Disturbing videos of the brutally stabbed child, gasping for breath, unable to speak anything in her final hours are doing rounds on social media, the murderers had reportedly tried to make her take Shaqil’s name when they found her alive.
A chilling confession by one of the accused shows him admitting that Anees, the child’s father had held her and looked the other way as one of the uncles stabbed her in the stomach, reportedly drawing her intestines out.
The accused have been arrested by the Police and have been booked under IPC sections 302 (murder), 120B (criminal conspiracy), and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of the offence, or giving false information to screen offender). Further investigations into the case are underway.