The timeline in the Nalgonda killings runs from June 19 to June 26, and police have laid most of it out. A man drove to a relative’s house on the 19th. Four people were dead by 5 am on the 20th. Neighbours found them on the night of the 22nd. On the 26th, the Nalgonda police announced four arrests.
The victims were Md Sultan, 45, a bag shop worker; his wife Haseena, 40, a private school teacher; and their children Muzammil, 20, and Afsura, 12. Neighbours alerted police to a foul smell from the locked house in Telangana Colony. The bodies were decomposed. A postmortem showed multiple injuries from a sharp-edged weapon, and Nalgonda I Town police registered a murder case.
The accused
Police named Syed Aslam, 28, a car driver from Gandipet, as the man who carried out the killings. He is married to Tabassum, 28, a homemaker and Haseena’s niece. Also arrested were Mohammed Sohail, 26, a friend of Aslam’s from Gandipet, and Hemanth Kumar, 28, a jeweller from Saroornagar. All four were taken near the Narkatpally flyover on Friday.
The motive, as police describe it
Nalgonda SP Sharath Chandra Pawar said Aslam and Tabassum were in financial trouble and held a long-standing personal grudge against Haseena. Aslam had borrowed Rs 1 lakh from her and was paying interest. Tabassum was recently pregnant, and Aslam wanted a new car for his taxi business. Haseena refused a fresh loan, cited the unpaid one, and asked for it back immediately.
“Haseena’s humiliating refusal, coupled with their financial difficulties, fuelled a murder conspiracy,” Pawar said. Before the attack, he said, Aslam looked up on YouTube how to commit a murder and get away.
June 19 and 20
Aslam knew Haseena kept gold and cash at home, according to the SP. On June 19 he drove to Nalgonda and called Sultan to say he would visit that night. Sultan stopped picking up. Aslam went over the compound wall instead and waited.
Haseena opened the door at 5 am on June 20. Pawar said Aslam stabbed her, then Sultan. Muzammil came out with a rod; Aslam, wounded on his feet and a finger, killed him as well. The girl had hidden under a bed in the bedroom. Police say Aslam dragged her out and killed her to remove a witness.
He took five tola of gold jewellery and land documents from the bedroom cupboard. Sohail helped him mortgage the gold with Hemanth Kumar for Rs 5.3 lakh.
Following the confessions, police recovered a car, Rs 3 lakh in cash, the knife, three mobile phones, the gold and the documents.
