Husband held for kidnapping, murdering wife from Nagpur

Heena was a Nagpur BJP minority cell functionary and had married Sahu on April 24, 2023. Sahu had separated from his first wife around four years ago, while Heena too had been living separately from her first husband. She would switch between her mother’s place in Nagpur and Jabalpur. Her son, 13-year-old Altmash, is studying in Nagpur.

“Heena and Sahu had a tiff over some financial issues. And due to personal reasons, Sahu allegedly committed the crime. We are further investigating the case,” Madane said.

An FIR was registered on August 10 by Heena’s mother, Mehrunisha Mobin Khan, a social activist from the Congress who lives in the Gorle Layout region of Nagpur. As per Mehrunisha’s statement, her daughter had been known to Sahu for over a year. Heena was a business partner with Sahu in Ashirwad dhaba in Jabalpur. Heena had given a 27-gram gold chain and a huge amount of money to Sahu for business purposes. She would often visit Jabalpur for the same reason.

On the night of August 1, Mehrunisha had told Heena not to speak loudly while speaking over the phone as it was disturbing others. “She was speaking loudly to Sahu over the phone and demanding her goldchain and money back. Sahu told her to come to Jabalpur and talk,” Mehrunisha stated.

On August 1 midnight, Heena left for Jabalpur in a private bus and reached there the next morning. She spoke to her son Altmash in Nagpur over phone, and that was the last time her family heard from her. Since then, her phone has been switched off.

Mehrunisha eventually called Sahu and asked her about her daughter, who told him that she had left after a heated argument with him. He claimed he had no idea where she had gone, according to the FIR.After filing a missing person’s complaint on August 3 in Nagpur, Mehrunisha and Nagpur police were looking for Heena in Jabalpur. Heena’s phone’s last location was Sahu’s house.

First clue

“During the investigation, we spoke to a person working at Sahu’s dhaba, who told us that on Sahu’s instructions he had washed his car, which had bloodstains all over,” said inspector Shubhangi Wankhede of Manakapur police station in Nagpur. After this, the police, based on Heena’s mother’s complaint, filed an FIR at the Manakapur police station against Sahu under IPC sections 364 (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder) and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation).

“After looking for the accused for the next six days, we finally arrested him on Friday. He said on the morning of August 2, Heena had come to his place. The two had a heated argument, and later, Sahu allegedly hit her on the head with a wooden baton 2-3 times. She fell down and eventually died. Sahu then left home and returned at night, and with the help of his friend Rajesh Singh, he allegedly took the body in his WagonR to the Hiran river, nearly 40km away, and threw it from a bridge into the river. We have seized Sahu’s car,” Wankhede said.

Preliminary investigation revealed Heena had doubts that Sahu was using profit from the dhaba business somewhere else without her knowledge, the officer added. The police have now added sections 302 (murder), 201 (destruction of evidence), and 34 (common intention) to the case.