The Agripada police Tuesday pressed murder charges against the 27-year-old businessman, who was earlier arrested on charges of abetment to suicide of his aunt.
The charge had been pressed against Shoheb Imtiyaz Khan in the case wherein he was previously arrested on charges of abeting the suicide of Gulshan Hashmat Khan, 53, who as per police’s initial reports allegedly died by suicide on April 6 after jumping from Shoeb’s 13th floor house in Byculla. Shoeb is a Ghodapdeo, Mazgaon resident. On Gulshan’s husband Hashmat Khan’s complaint, the police had booked Shoheb (who claimed to have married her aunt), his elder brother and mother on April 16. Shoeb’s brother and mother are also accused in the case but have not been arrested yet. “During investigation the police took the doctors and experts to the crime scene and after examination they pointed to certain circumstantial evidence which indicated Shoeb’s role as killer. Hence based on the doctor’s report and circumstantial evidence we pressed murder charges against Shoeb on Tuesday. We would soon take his custody again from jail as per the provisions under the new law,” said Sanjay Nale, senior inspector of Agripada police station.
The case The complainant, Khan, 63, a timberwood businessman, has been married to four women. Gulshan was his second wife, and from her, Khan has a 17-year-old daughter. According to the police complaint, Gulshan had been in an alleged relationship with her nephew Shoheb for the past seven years. When Khan discovered this, he had a heated argument with Gulshan, who then left home in December 2022 and started living with Shoheb along with her daughter. At the time of leaving, she also took away her 65 tolas of gold ornaments.
Gulshan and Shoheb developed differences after a complaint of cheating people in the name of helping them get loans was filed against them with the crime branch unit 4, the police complaint states.
Khan, in his statement to the police, stated that on April 2, Gulshan called him from her daughter’s phone and admitted her mistake of separating from him. She also told Khan that Shoheb and his brother harass her for money, and Shoheb’s mother also harasses her, states the FIR.
“Gulshan told me, ‘They have taken all my money and jewellery. I can’t take it anymore; now I just want to die, Hashmat’ – She also told me that she wants to come back to me,” Khan claimed in his statement.
Khan, however, ignored this as he was angry with her over her ‘marrying’ Shoheb despite taking a divorce from him. On April 6 Khan discovered that she died by suicide from the 13th-floor flat. Khan informed everything to the police and, on April 16, filed a complaint against Shoheb, his brother and mother.
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Blood on bathroom door, victim’s slippers:
When police inspected the incident place on April 6, they had spotted blood on the door of the common bathroom and also on the victim’s slippers in the bedroom.
Besides this, Shoheb was present at the flat when the alleged suicide incident took place. He was not seen around after that and also switched off his phone, an officer said.
Gulshan’s daughter told police that Shoheb had been threatening her. And also on his instructions, his driver took away certain articles from the incident place.
All these facts indicated that Gulshan died in suspicious circumstances, and they all point towards Shoheb’s alleged role, said the officer.
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Shoheb surrendered to the police last month. Police are also trying to find out what financial disputes were going on between him and Gulshan, another officer said.
