Waste picker, wife brutally murdered

A couple were brutally done to death by unidentified men at Hebbagodi in Anekal taluk early Wednesday morning.

Jamal, 40, was found dead lying in a pool of blood inside his house at Sampigenagar, and the body of his wife Naseema, 35, was dumped metres away, her torso buried in an anthill hole. Police suspect an extramarital affair to be the reason behind the murders.

The couple, natives of Bashunthi village, 24 Paraganas district, West Bengal, had a son and a daughter. Jamal, a ragpicker, had settled in Bangalore five years ago and Naseema joined him two years later, leaving their children in their native village. Till a few months ago, they were staying in a makeshift shed for ragpickers, but they moved out following a quarrel, police said.

The cluster has 50 people, all natives of Bihar and West Bengal, who eke out a living by selling waste and used fertilisers to rope-making units in northern India. Naseema recently joined as a domestic help at a flat in a nearby apartment.

Heads crushed

According to police, the assailants knocked on the door around 2 am and when Jamal answered the door, they pushed him down and smashed his head with hollow bricks. Then they began attacking Naseema, who escaped from their clutches and ran towards the makeshift sheds where some of her relatives stayed. But the assailants chased her and bludgeoned her to death. They shoved her head into an anthill and fled, police said.

“I went out of my house around 7 am to switch on the borewell pump,” Nanjappa, the owner of Jamal’s house, said. “Naseema would be at the borewell every day around that time. I did not find her on Wednesday morning. I grew suspicious and peeped in through the window to find Jamal lying dead. There was blood all over the floor,” Nanjappa told Deccan Herald.

Nanjappa alerted his neighbours and a search began for Naseema.
“We went to the sheds to check if she was there. But on the roadside, we saw a body half-buried in an anthill. Our suspicion came true. It was Naseema. A hollow brick with blood stains lay near her body,” Kumar, a neighbour, told Deccan Herald.

‘Murders common here’

Some neighbours said they saw the couple being murdered, but did not dare rescue them. “We heard them scream late at night, but we did not step out of our homes as attacks and murders are common here. Moreover, it was Amavasya day. Our fears came true the next morning,” they said.

“Jamal and Naseema were planning to leave Bangalore for good and return to their native village in West Bengal. They felt alienated after they moved out of our colony. 

They used to say they want to be in the City for Jamal’s treatment, but they had a tough time after he was bed-ridden. Naseema worked day and night as domestic help to ensure money for her husband’s treatment,” said Santhoshi, a ragpicker from Delhi.

Jurisdictional police denied allegations that they did not patrol the area regularly.
A police inspector said the suspects could be ragpickers from North India. 

“It could be a fallout of an affair. In the last two months, Jamal never ventured out of his house, as he suffers from a heart disease,” he said.

Another officer said it was not a murder for gain, as the valuables in the house were intact.

“There are some leads and we will solve the case soon,” the officer said.