The mystery over Bollywood starlet Laila Khan’s alleged disappearance deepened after the police said her last whereabouts were not in Nashik, unlike her other missing family members.
Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Himanshu Roy told reporters on Friday that while Igatpuri in Nashik district was ascertained as the final location of Ms. Khan’s mother and her four relatives, it was not so for the starlet and her sister.
Secondly, Ms. Khan and her sister “went missing” a day after her mother and other relatives did, Mr. Roy said.
While the Jammu and Kashmir police reported the arrest of another accused in the case, Asif Sheikh, in Mumbai, the investigating agency, the Crime Branch in Mumbai, and officials of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, however, denied reports of his arrest.
“We don’t know the location of Asif Sheikh,” Mr. Roy said.
Ms. Khan’s stepfather Parvez Iqbal Tak, arrested and interrogated by the Jammu and Kashmir police, has claimed that Ms. Khan and her relatives were shot dead. Mr. Roy, however, doubted Ms. Khan’s murder, as well as statements of the accused that she could be in Dubai.
The Mumbai police are expected to seek the custody of Tak in a couple of days.
“Tak has to explain the whole thing. Eyewitness accounts and other evidence show that he was driving the vehicle in which the missing family members were present,” Mr. Roy said.
