Pallavi Purkayastha’s killer held at Sonmarg

Mumbai: The Mumbai crime branch arrested Sajjad Mughal, the private security guard who jumped parole in March last year after being convicted for the murder of city-based lawyer Pallavi Purkayastha (25) in August 2012, from Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).

Mughal, who was a watchman at the ‘Himalayan Heights’ building where the victim stayed, was found guilty of murder, molestation and criminal trespass, and was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2014.

A native of the Baramulla district, he was arrested near Sonmarg early on Tuesday morning and brought to Mumbai. He will be handed over to the authorities of the Nashik Jail, where he was lodged before absconding, on Wednesday.

 The police team, which comprised of few officials who had arrested him in the murder case, was in J&K for a week before they managed to nab him with the help of “local sources” they had developed. After jumping parole, Mughal survived doing petty jobs, including that of a watchman, for a year in J&K.

 Mughal had killed Pallavi on the night of August 9, 2012 when she was alone in her flat after he made advances at her, which she resisted. According to the J&K police, after jumping parole in March, the accused visited his mother in June. According to sources, he looked exhausted.

Mumbai Commissioner D.D. Padsalgikar said, “Our team has been behind him since the past one year. He was constantly changing places and since it is a different state, our team took the time to build sources over there and were able to arrest him successfully from J&K.”  

Pallavi's father had met Mr Padsalgikar after the accused jumped parole. “I called him after we arrested Mughal. He was really happy and cried,” he said.

Joint CP crime, Sanjay Saxena said that Mughal was doing petty jobs for the last few months to survive.

“He was living sometime near the India-Pakistan border. We are still investigating whether he crossed the border or not. Our three team deployed to arrest him visited J&K five to six times. Through our team’s sources, we got information and were able to arrest him on Tuesday morning,” Mr Saxena said.

PI Sanjay Nikam, who was heading the team, said that they went through several difficult situations during investigation. “It was difficult to catch him as he was constantly changing his look. Twice he escaped from our hands. Then we changed our look and decided to keep an eye on him.”  He added that they first visited J&K around a year ago posing as tourists. “We grew beards like the locals and even dressed like them so that we could mingle with them. We visited J&K four to five times posing as tourists so that no one would know about our presence. During these visits, we befriended some natives and developed informants among them,” he said.

But the biggest hurdle for the crime branch came in the form of the September 2016 attack on Uri, a town in the Baramulla district in Kashmir. Following the attack, Baramulla was declared a prohibited area and tourists were forbidden to enter. Mughal’s native place, Salamabad, is also located in Baramulla, around 16 kilometers from the Indo-Pak border, and the police had information that he was working as a daily wage labourer near his native place.

“Mughal would visit his residence in Salamabad every once in a while, reaching his house in the dead of the night and leaving at dawn. He had convinced his family members and fellow villagers that he had been falsely implicated in Pallavi’s murder, due to which they helped him come and go undetected,” Mr Nikam said.

Special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam, who had conducted the trial, said, “Jail authorities should take into consideration the fact that he jumped parole before considering any application by him for any relief in the future. The jail authorities should ensure that he doesn’t get a parole in future,” he said.