B’lore: Husband and wife duo kidnap and kill six-year-old niece for Rs. 10 lakh ransom


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Bangalore Mirror

Bangalore, 12 July 2014:

A despicable husband-and-wife duo partners to kidnap their own niece for Rs 10 lakh ransom, and when plans go awry, strangles her to death before joining a search party as dutiful relatives

 

What price should a six-year-old child pay for her trusting innocence? Only a few hours after Rakhiba — a Standard II student of Shree Dhanraj Phoolchand Hindi High School on Victoria Road in Ashok Nagar — had run up to her aunt Shabreen Salman and hugged her in a tight embrace, the same relative had teamed up with her husband, the own brother of the child’s mother, to strangle her to death. 

 

Shabreen had turned up at Rakhiba’s school around 12:45 pm on Wednesday clad in a black burqa, urgently asking to speak to the teacher. She informed the teacher that she had come to take her niece Rakhiba home immediately as her grandmother was seriously ill. Claiming to be the girl’s aunt, the woman pointed out to Rakhiba, who reportedly identified the lady and ran up to her in all innocence. 

 

 

Sensing nothing amiss, the teacher is said to have sent the student off without a second thought. It didn’t occur to her that she could have cross-checked with Rakhiba’s sister, Sheeba Nisar, 20, who had joined the same school as a teacher in June. 

 

Unknown to the teacher, Shabreen , 26, had actually kidnapped the child from under her nose. Her story about the seriously ill grandmother was a lie which she had fabricated, along with her husband Syed Salman Shah, 28, to kidnap her niece. Soon, when it became evident that their carefully laid out plans were spinning out of control, the husband and wife duo strangled Rakhiba to death without even a moment’s hesitation. 

 

RAKHIBA YOUNGEST OF FOUR 

Rakhiba was the youngest of the four daughters of Syed Nisar and Syeda Samina — both in their mid-40s and residents of Yellagundapalya, Austin Town. Highly-placed sources revealed that Nisar — who had been employed as a computer engineer with a private firm in Saudi Arabia — had recently moved back to India to supervise the construction of his new house. Nisar had been attending interviews to secure another job and go back to the Middle East when tragedy struck. Incidentally, Salman Shah happens to be the own brother of Samina. 

 

Once Shabreen took Rakhiba out of her school, she took the child to Shivajinagar where her waiting husband joined them. Shabreen and Salman bought Rakhiba some food and chocolate and then took her to their house in Thimmaiah Road, Bharathi Nagar. 

 

Setting their plan in motion, Salman allegedly sent seven text messages Samina using an unknown number that he had purchased a week ago by paying Rs 100 at a store in Shivajinagar which had not asked him for identity proof. In the messages, Salman demanded a ransom of Rs 10 lakh in exchange for the safe return of Rakhiba. He also warned her not to approach the police, and told her not to panic, saying that the moment the money reached him, the child would be returned safely. 

 

PANIC AFTER CALL 

Switching off his mobile phone, Salman quickly changed SIM cards and reverted to his old number, when around 3:25 pm, he suddenly received a call from his mother, Mehbooba Khanum, informing him that a woman wearing a burqa claiming to be family had kidnapped Rakhiba from her school, police said. 

 

Without an inkling of a doubt that her desperate son was behind the abduction, Khanum reportedly told Salman to search for the child, saying the family was ready to approach politicians and the media in order to solve the case. 

 

Panicked by the idea of getting caught, Salman and Shabreen reportedly took an instant decision to get rid of the child and murdered Rakhiba by strangling her with a dupatta, police said. Wrapping the child’s body inside a blanket, Salman stowed the body away under their bed, thinking of disposing it later in the night. 

 

Leaving Shabreen alone with Rakhiba’s body, Salman set out to put on a show of having searched high and low for Rakhiba and went to his sister’s house. There, he joined the search party consisting of other relatives and friends, and even went to the Ashok Nagar police station around 5:30 pm to "help" the police with their investigations. 

 

The needle of suspicion, however, slowly began pointing towards Salman when his other sister Sabira, and her husband, Inayath, found his restless behaviour and evasive attitude while answering the police to be highly suspicious. 

 

Though they shared their apprehensions with Rakhiba’s mother, Samina, the latter refused to believe that her own brother could have had something to do with the kidnapping, and brushed off the allegations. But an adamant Sabira and Inayath went ahead and divulged their suspicions to a sub-inspector at the Ashok Nagar police station around 8 pm. To their dismay, they were not taken seriously and the couple decided to return to the Nisar residence. 

 

A MIDNIGHT CALL 

Several heated discussions at the house later, Sabira and Inayath managed to convince their entire family that Salman had a role to play in Rakhiba’s disappearance. Samina, who had been waiting desperately for another SMS or call from the kidnappers, was most reluctant to believe her brother’s involvement. Nonetheless, her mother and other family members called and informed Ashok Nagar police inspector O Rangappa around midnight about their suspicions. 

 

This time, the inspector acted swiftly and sent a team of policemen to bring Salman into custody for questioning. After a thorough grilling, he is said to have confessed to the crime, and even took the police to his house where the child’s body was kept. By 1:30 am on Thursday, Salman and Shabreen were arrested for the abduction and brutal killing of their niece Rakhiba. 

 

When the police questioned the class teacher and other authorities of Shree Dhanraj Phoolchand Hindi High School, they explained that the lady who approached them claimed to be immediate family and narrated a sob story. "Moreover, as the child ran up to the woman whom she clearly recognised and gave her a hug, the teacher had little reason to doubt the authenticity of the woman’s story. When we asked them why they did not inform the child’s sister Sheeba — who is also an employee of the same school — the teacher said that it didn’t occur to her since Sheeba had just joined the school a month ago," police sources revealed. 

 

DUE DILIGENCE MUST 

Most reputed private and aided schools follow a strict protocol regarding the custody of their students. The schools are said to issue identity cards for students with photographs of both parents and their accompanying car/van driver or guardian to enable security guards to correctly identify the person who comes to fetch the child. 

 

Senior police officials revealed that Salman supplied fish-food to aquariums to make a living. He also had a penchant for changing SIM cards, and had changed as many as 45 SIMs in the recent past. In police custody, he began to sing a different tune and reportedly even fought with his wife, each claiming the other was responsible for the murder. "He kept trying to show repentance for his actions, saying it is the holy month of Ramzan and that when they are not allowed to even utter a single word of profanity, he had committed such a brutal murder of his own niece," the officer said.

 

KILLER’S 7 MESSAGES

1) I have kidnapped your daughter, she is with my team

2) Don’t go to police or reveal about the kidnap to anyone

3) To release your daughter you have to give us Rs 10 lakh

4) If you go to police or share information among your relatives, I will kill your daughter

5) Don’t panic your daughter is safe in our custody. If the money is paid we will not do anything to her

6) We are following your movements, I know where you are going, so don’t act smart

7) Iwill tell you the place and time in some time then you have to comealong with Rs 10 lakh, till then wait for us 

 

 

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