Hitman held for killing 80-yr-old woman in Gujarat
The Gujarat police tracked him to Jogeshwari and the Mumbai crime branch was informed about his location, officials said.
Mumbai: The Mumbai crime branch on Monday arrested a hitman from Jogeshwari who has been accused of murdering an 80-year-old woman in Gujarat. The woman’s son-in-law Ramesh Patel hired the accused for Rs 5 lakh owing to his personal feud with her. The woman, identified as Rambha Patel, was murdered in December last year in Ahmedabad’s Ghatlodiya area, and the accused had been on the run ever since.
The arrested accused, identified as Ishtiyak Hasan Ali Khan (35), was apprehended from Meghwadi when he came to meet his sister. A team of unit ten of the crime branch, headed by officer Shrimant Shinde, apprehended him on the second occasion. Officials said that Khan arranged men to murder the woman in cold blood. Khan used to supply labourers to Ramesh for the latter’s sand business and that’s how they came to know each other.
A crime branch officer said, “Khan and the accused son-in-law were proprietors in the sand business and that is how they knew each other. The main accused had a dispute with the senior citizen over some property, which he allegedly wanted for himself. He hired Khan and paid him the money asking for men who would commit the deed.”
The assailants, disguised as courier boys, broke into the woman’s home and robbed her of her valuables, later strangling her to death. The accused, including Ramesh and the killers, were arrested subsequently by the Ahmedabad police. However, Khan had been absconding. The Gujarat police tracked him to Jogeshwari and the Mumbai crime branch was informed about his location, officials said.