JOIN USStarlet, family murdered, claims step-father
The vanishing case of starlet Reshma Patel, alias Laila Khan, in February 201,1 took a new turn after her step father, Parvez Iqbal Tak, in a riveting revelation, claimed that Khan, along with her family members, was murdered near Mumbai last year.
A team of Mumbai Police had left for Srinagar last month to interrogate Tak. However, crime branch officials refused to divulge anything about the interrogation, but admitted that a case was registered against Tak on Wednesday.
Senior police officials said though a case of abduction has been registered against
Tak and two others, following a complaint by Khan's biological father Nadir Patel, establishing the murder “depends a lot on other specific evidences.”
In the complaint, Patel said Khan, her mother Celina Patel, elder sister Hazmina, twin siblings Zara and Imran and a cousin, disappeared from Oshiwara in Mumbai in February 2011. They were reportedly preparing to attend a wedding in Kashmir.
Earlier, Tak had claimed that Khan and her family members had left for Dubai on forged passports, giving rise to frivolous speculations on the involvement of terrorists and criminal syndicates in the disappearance.
Speculations on terrorists' involvement were fanned further after the Maharashtra anti-terrorist squad came into the picture and Tak went underground. In June 2012, the Jammu & Kashmir Police came across two vehicles with Maharashtra number plate, parked near a shop at Kishtwar in Kashmir.
One of the vehicles belonged to Laila Khan. After that Tak was arrested and the Mumbai Police were informed.
Tak had also contested the 2008 Assembly elections from the Inderwal constituency.
According to reports, the killings were the outcome of a dispute over property involving Khan's mother Celina and her two former husbands Tak and Aasif Shaikh. The duo had protested Celina's decision to sell some of the family-owned shops and later connived to kill the family.
It was learnt that a team of the Jammu & Kashmir Police will leave for Mumbai to share information on the interrogation. Khan had made her Bollywood debut with the 2008 movie “Wafaa,” also starring Rajesh Khanna.