Seven-year-old murder mystery solved at a funeral in Bengaluru

Heena Kausar. Credit: DH Photo

A funeral has helped solve a seven-year-old murder mystery that had kept the police on tenterhooks.

The mystery of who killed Wazir Pasha may well have remained under wraps if not for a few tenacious detectives and some quirk of fate. Pasha, a resident of Gajanana Nagar, Hegganahalli, North Bengaluru, was found murdered at Somandepalli town in the Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh on May 16, 2015. But the police in Somandepalli were unable to identify the deceased. A missing complaint filed with Kamakshipalya police by Pasha’s wife Ayesha also went nowhere.

Sanjeev M Patil, Deputy Commissioner of Police (West), came across the unsolved missing case during a recent file review and ordered a fresh probe. Police soon got a lead. The last call to Pasha’s phone number was made by one of his distant relatives, Heena Kausar, 27.

Police learned that Kausar and her husband, Sheikh B D Mohammed Ghouse, 39, were tailors, much like Pasha. They once lived in Gajanana Nagar but there was no trace of them. Police decided to surveil them and soon got lucky.

On February 11, Kausar’s grandfather died. Police had a feeling she and her husband would come for the funeral. So some plain-clothesmen went to the house and kept waiting. When Kausar and Ghouse eventually arrived, the police immediately detained them for questioning.

Before long, bits of the puzzle fell into place. The couple narrated to the police how and why they had killed Pasha.

Pasha had sexually exploited Kausar after lending the couple Rs 1.5 lakh. The couple needed the money to repay a moulvi who had given them a hand loan.

Kausar and Ghouse got married in Andhra Pradesh in 2012 and moved to Bengaluru the same year. They stitched clothes and supplied them to garment shops. But the business didn’t do well and they borrowed money from the moulvi.

Unable to repay the debt, they moved to Hyderabad but returned soon after because the moulvi found their whereabouts and demanded his money back. Pasha came to their rescue but he put one condition. He sought sexual favours from Kausar. When she turned him down, he demanded his money back. She eventually gave in.

When she later told her husband, he was furious and vowed to kill Pasha. The couple came up with a plan.

On May 13, 2015, Kausar invited Pasha over. But before he arrived around 1.30 pm, Ghouse lay hiding under the bed. As Pasha tried to get intimate with Kausar, she fought back and managed to tie her sari around his neck. Ghouse joined her.

Pulling the sari from opposite ends, Kausar and Ghouse strangled Pasha in a jiffy. They then stuffed the body in two sacks and filled them with clothes. The sacks were loaded onto Pasha’s scooter and taken to Anantapur, and dumped at Kavetinagepalli village on Hindupur Road the same night.

Police took Pasha’s DNA samples from relatives as well as those preserved by Somandepalli police and sent them for a forensic examination.

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