LUCKNOW: A man, in his mid-20s, killed his four sisters and mother with his father's assistance inside a hotel room on Wednesday.
The accused, identified as Arshad, after committing the crime dropped his father Mohammed Badar at the Charbagh railway station and then walked into the police station to admit his act.
The family was from Agra and had come to Lucknow after a visit to Ajmer. Arshad later claimed land-related harassment by some members of his community in their hometown Agra.
The news of the incident led the densely populated locality of Naka of the state capital to panic at the onset of the new year after police arrived with Arshad at a small hotel, discovering five bodies including the 45-year-old woman and her four daughters, aged between 9 and 19 years.
The deceased were identified as Aasma, the mother of the accused, and his four younger sisters, Aalia (9), Aaksha (16), Rehmeen (18), and Aalsiya (19).
After killing all five women, Arshad shot a video where he not only showed the lifeless bodies of his mother and sisters but also explained the reason behind the killings and blamed the neighbours for the extreme step that he took.
Senior police officers, including Lucknow’s Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Central, Raveena Tyagi, said Arshad and his father Mohammad Badar, 55, were the prime suspects of the crime and that they had confessed to it. DCP Tyagi said that Mohammad Arshad was taken into custody and further investigation was on while the search for Badar was on. Police teams were rummaging through CCTV footage to nab his father.
The DCP said that the family was from Islamnagar, Tehdi Bagiya, Kuberpur of Agra, and they arrived in Lucknow on December 30 and booked room in Hotel Sharanjeet for two days.
According to police sources, the injuries on the bodies suggested that the man and his father strangled all five women to death, and the lack of resistance raises suspicion that the deceased was given sedative-laced food before being murdered. Their wrists were also slit.
The DCP said the incident seemed to have occurred after 1 am, as the hotel staff said that the deceased were seen roaming outside the room until then. She said the investigation was on to ascertain the exact motive behind the crime.
“In the initial interrogation, accused Arshad confessed to killing his four sisters and mother and said that the people in the neighbourhood were harassing his family. He was afraid that if something were to happen to him, what would happen to his mother and sisters, so he decided to kill them,” said DCP Tyagi.
The bodies were sent for post-mortem examination while Agra police were informed about the incident. Meanwhile, an FIR under BNS section 103 (murder) has been registered by police sub-inspector Kamal Kumar against Arshad.
The DCP explained the alleged modus operandi of the incident by saying that Arshad first took his family to Ajmer, then brought them to Lucknow and arranged a hotel for their stay. At night, he made them consume alcohol, gagged some with cloth, and strangled them with a dupatta. He slit the wrists of others using a blade. His father assisted in the crime. Later, he dropped his father at the railway station.
Based on Arshad's statements, the police recovered the murder weapons— a blade and a dupatta.