GHAZIABAD: The family was in mourning when a police team arrived on Thursday morning. Their 19-year-old had passed away after an illness. They told the cops she had “a throat infection”. But the police were there because of a call made to them about the girl’s mysterious death. In the next few hours, after they had stopped the hurried last rites, sent the body for an autopsy and questioned her family intensively, the illness ruse fell apart. This was a suspected honour killing. By afternoon, an FIR had been filed under Section 302 of the IPC (murder) and the Tohid, Danish and Samsidha, the three accused named in it, had been detained. Samsidha is the victim’s mother, Tohid and Danish her two elder brothers. Gulfaas was allegedly killed because she was planning to elope with her boyfriend, a relationship the family did not approve of. According to the boyfriend, who filed the police complaint on which the FIR was filed, she was murdered around 3.30am. Police said Gulfaas was smothered with a pillow while her hands and legs were held down. Nipurn Aggarwal, SP city-1, told TOI police received information about the death around 10am. “The family members were trying to perform her last rites when we reached. Initially, they said she was ill. Her mother said she had problems in her throat for a few days. During interrogation, Tohid (25) and Danish (26) confessed. They said their mother was also involved. Tohid killed the girl with a pillow while Danish and Samsidha held her hands and legs,” Aggarwal said, adding the autopsy report was awaited. “Soon, we will arrest them, after complete investigation and questioning,” he said. Police said Gulfaas was in a relationship with a youth from Dasna. In his complaint, the youth provided a sequence of events leading up to her alleged murder. Around 9pm on Wednesday, he received a phone call from Gulfaas asking for help, he told the cops. “She asked me to rescue her from the house as her brothers and mother would kill her. I thought, how can a mother kill her daughter? But at 3.19am on Thursday, she again called me and said her brother and mother are coming upstairs and they will kill her. She also said they were beating her for the last three days. At 3.31am, her family members killed her,” according to his complaint. Two audio clips, meanwhile, surfaced that police said they were looking into. In the shorter clip, of around 2 minutes, the voice of a girl is heard seeking help from a boy and asking him to come to her house and save her from her brother and mother. In the longer clip – 12 minutes and 49 seconds – the voice of a girl is her pleading with her mother and brothers to spare her. She is told the family’s image would be harmed. A senior police officer, who is part of the investigation team, said Gulfaas had a basic feature phone, which her boyfriend had given her. “Between 8.30pm and 9pm on Wednesday, she was talking to her male friend and her mother overheard that they were planning to elope on Thursday night. Samsidha told her sons. After that, they told her to end ties with the boy and not talk to him again. She refused.” It was a family of 7 that lived in the Kaila Bhatta house. Gulfaas’s father Nanne Khan, a former contractor in the construction sector has been paralysed for the last two years. Her younger sister was at home at the time of the incident, police sources said.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ghaziabad/mother-two-brothers-booked-for-honour-killing-of-19-year-old-in-ghaziabad/articleshow/95287262.cms