Over a year after he jumped parole, Sajjad Mughal, convicted for the murder of city lawyer Pallavi Purkayastha, was apprehended in his home State of Jammu and Kashmir by the Mumbai Police Crime Branch.
Mughal was held on Tuesday by a team of Crime Branch personnel, led by the officer who had arrested him the first time: Police Inspector Sanjay Nikam. Mughal was on his way to seek work as a daily wager near Sonmarg.
On August 9, 2012, Pallavi, 25, was found stabbed to death in her rented apartment in Himalayan Heights, Wadala, which she shared with her boyfriend, Avik Sengupta. A day later, the Crime Branch’s Unit IV arrested Mughal, who was employed as a security guard in the building, for killing her when she rejected his advances. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on July 7, 2014, and sent to Nashik Central Jail. In February 2014, he was granted parole for 30 days; he never returned, and the Nashik Police registered a fresh case against him.
Mumbai Commissioner of Police D.D. Padsalgikar said Mughal was arrested early on Tuesday. “Our team was in J&K for seven to eight days before Mughal was picked up. It is a remarkable operation conducted in unfamiliar territory. We will be handing him over to the Nashik Police.”
Mr. Padsalgikar added, “As soon as I was informed about this by my team, the first call I made was to Pallavi’s father. He told me he had tears in his eyes, and that he had been waiting for this moment for a long time.”
JCP (Crime) Sanjay Saxena said the special team was formed around a year ago with the sole purpose of nabbing Mughal. Police Inspector Sanjay Nikam, who was heading Unit IV when Mughal was arrested in 2012, was given charge of the squad, which visited J&K three to four times over the last year. “Mughal kept changing his appearance and location. As he is not highly qualified, he would do odd jobs for a living, and is likely to have taken the help of some friends to evade arrest.”
Tracking a killer
The September 2016 attack in Uri, a town in J&K’s Baramulla district, ended up posing a challenge for the Crime Branch team: Baramulla was declared a prohibited area and tourists were banned. Salamabad, Mughal’s hometown, is in Baramulla, around 16 km from the Indo-Pak border. The team had information that he was working as a daily wage labourer near Salamabad, but couldn’t enter the district as they were posing as tourists.
Mr. Nikam said, “Mughal would visit his home often, arriving late at night and leaving at dawn. He had convinced his family members and fellow villagers that he had been falsely implicated in Pallavi's murder, and they helped him to visit.”
The police said that after jumping parole, Mughal first tried to secure employment in Maharashtra under an assumed name, but failed and later fled to his hometown.
Earlier this month, the police team came to know that a major road repair project had begun in Gagangir village near Sonmarg, and Mughal was likely to seek employment there. The squad reached J&K and lay in wait for a week before they could nab him. “Our disguise seems to have worked well, as Mughal did not recognise me when I approached him,” Mr. Nikam said.
The team first visited J&K around a year ago, posing as tourists. “We grew beards like the local fashion, dressed like them. We visited J&K four to five times posing as tourists so that no one would suspect us. During these visits, we befriended some locals and developed informants,” he said.
Atanu and Sumita Purkayastha, Pallavi’sparents, outside the sessions court in 2012. (File)
He should hang: father
Atanu Purkayastha, Pallavi’s father, said he felt “immensely grateful” to the Mumbai Police for arresting his daughter's killer. “I have to say that the Mumbai Police kept their word, and did it so well. Arresting Mughal from a location like Kashmir was by no means an easy job, but they pulled it off. It is a huge, huge achievement and I cannot be grateful enough,” Mr. Purkayastha told The Hindu . “I hope that the Bombay high Court will at least now award him the death penalty, which should have been awarded by the sessions court. For two years, the appeal in the HC was at a standstill as he had disappeared. I hope the appeal is fast-tracked now.”
