Man gets life term for killing labourer

In December 2007,the body of 28-year-old Yaar Mohammed Sheikh was thrown out of an autorickshaw outside the Himalaya Society in Ghatkopar. The postmortem of the body had revealed that he was choked to death. Following this,a case of murder was registered.

“Our first step was to trace the autorickshaw driver. After procuring details from the RTO,we had found him five days after the incident. The autorickshaw driver told us that he was at Sakinaka on that day. According to him,a man who was later identified as Sheikh,had fallen into a semi-conscious state in front of his autorickshaw and another man asked the driver to take them to a hospital,” said Police Inspector Fulsingh Pawar of the Ghatkopar police station.

“After getting into the autorickshaw,the other man told the driver that Sheikh was drunk and asked him to go to the Himalaya Society. During the journey,the driver noticed that the man was choking Sheikh. Upon reaching the Himalaya Society,the man had thrown Sheikh out of the autorickshaw and asked the driver to speed away,” said Pawar.

The police had then spoken to Sheikh’s family members who said he often frequented toddy bars. Armed with photos of the deceased,the police then had tried to locate the bars where Sheikh used to go.

“A bar owner recognised Sheikh as a familiar client and had located Sheikh’s friends who used to sit with him during his drinking bouts. A friend said on the night of the murder,another friend called Mehboob Amin Sheikh had met Sheikh and taken him away. We had made sketches of the accused using the descriptions given by the locals at Saki Naka,the residents of the Himalaya society and the auto rickshaw driver,” said Pawar.

With the help of the sketches,we nabbed Mehboob Sheikh in a month and filed a chargesheet last year.