Solving Crime: How a half-torn medical prescription led police to killers of Bhiwandi man

A murder case was registered against unidentified suspects, and a massive investigation was launched.

During the panchnama, the police did not find any ID card or cell phone but a piece of paper was found in the man’s pant pocket. It was a half-torn medical prescription. The police also noticed golden and red stains on the body of the deceased, leading them to believe that he probably worked at a pearl workshop where workers’ clothes and hands were often stained in this manner.

With these clues in hand, different police teams were formed under the supervision of Assistant Commissioner of Police Prakash Dhole. While one team began work on the medical prescription, the other started looking for information on any person working in a pearl workshop in the region who had been reported missing recently.

The team enquiring about the prescription at medical stores got lucky when a pharmacist gave them information about the doctor whose name was on it. But when they visited the doctor, he said that he could not recall the patient to whom he had handed over the prescription. Plus, the prescription was half-torn. There was also no CCTV at the doctor’s clinic.

Dejected, the police team was set to return, thinking that the visit to the clinic had been a waste of time when they chanced upon a patient waiting to meet the doctor. She told the police about a woman who was looking for her husband, who worked at a pearl workshop.

With renewed hope, the police managed to locate the woman. But when they showed her the body, she failed to identify him as her husband. Undeterred, the police called her elder son to have a closer look. He identified the deceased as his father Arman Shah, 48, with the help of a birthmark on his face and the taabiz (locket) he used to wear.

As news of the gruesome murder spread in the region, the police intensified their hunt for the accused.

While the police were obtaining details about Shah’s family background, his workplace, colleagues, etc., they hit the jackpot when an eyewitness to the crime came forward, prompting the police to think that they were on the verge of solving the case.

A resident, Mohammed Salman, told the police that he had seen three people mercilessly assault Shah on January 19 but he did not immediately inform the police as he was scared. Salman took the police to his pearl workshop, the place where Shah was brutally murdered, and based on the details he provided, the police prepared sketches of the three suspected killers.

Meanwhile, the investigating team carrying out Shah’s background check and analysing his phone call details zeroed in on three suspect mobile numbers. When Inspector Deep Bane took a look at these numbers, he was shocked to learn that one of them belonged to Salman, the ‘eyewitness’ helping the police crack the murder.

“The details Salman told us at the crime scene about how Shah was murdered had discrepancies when we matched it with the detailed postmortem report. In the report, doctors narrated the sequence of how Shah was first punched-kicked and then hit with a rod-like blunt object and then strangled with a cable wire. Salman was saying otherwise,” Bane said.

“Because of this my suspicion on him grew, and against all odds, I convinced my superior that Salman is not an eyewitness; in fact, he is one of the killers,” Bane added.

Salman was detained and subjected to sustained interrogation, and after a while, he allegedly admitted that he was one of the killers and had deliberately appeared before the police as an eyewitness to misguide and divert the investigation so that the real accused would get time to escape to their hometown.

Salman’s interrogation revealed that his friend Tasleem Ansari was the alleged mastermind of the crime and their friend Bilal Ansari was also involved. Subsequently, the police arrested Tasleem and Bilal, who were on the run, from Jalgaon.

Their interrogation revealed that Tasleem used to work at the pearl workshop where Shah worked earlier. During this time, the two became good friends and Tasleem would often visit his place. Later, Tasleem started getting close to Shah’s wife and they allegedly began having an affair. This angered Shah who allegedly slapped Tasleem one day.

Insulted, Tasleem decided to take revenge and hatched a plan to kill Shah, involving Salman and Bilal, the police said. The trio called Shah under the false pretext of sorting out the misunderstanding between him and Tasleem and then brutally killed him, the police added. Later, they allegedly stuffed Shah’s body in a gunny bag and dumped it 8 km away under a bridge.

But a tiny, half-torn medical prescription upended their best-laid plans.