A 37-year-old Hyderabad-born man running a convenience store in Thomaston city in Georgia of the United States was reportedly killed by his business rivals there on Halloween night on Sunday.
He was stabbed multiple times by the attackers, a US citizen and two Indian nationals, and was found dead in a pool of blood outside his house on Crawley Street.
The victim, Mohammed Arif Mohiuddin, a resident of Bahadurpura in Old City, went to the United States 10 years ago for higher studies and settled there. He opened the store two months ago, after losing the job at a consultancy firm due to COVID-19 lockdown.
Thomaston Police Chief Mike Richardson, who is investigating the murder said that Arif, who operated ‘The Heights’, a convenience store on East Moore's Crossing was involved in a business dispute with his alleged attackers.
Footage of the surveillance cameras near Arif's property had shown multiple assailants, including an employee at the store.
“They (attackers) wanted to open a new store quite opposite to Asif’s on East Moore’s Crossing, and the local authorities asked them to take clearance from the former, for which he denied as his business could run into losses with the opening of another store on the opposite street,” Asif’s father-in-law Khaja Moizuddin, a retired Physical Director from Anwarul Uloom College told The Hindu .
Arif got married to Moizuddin’s daughter Mehnaaz Fatima (27) two-and-half-years ago and the couple have a 10-month-old daughter. Arif’s last visit to Hyderabad was in 2019 and his mother stays with his sister in Australia.
Both Moizuddin and Mehnaaz applied for an emergency visa to the US to see Arif for the ‘last time’ before the body is buried there.
“I request the government to arrange for me and my father to go to the US on an emergency visa so that we could perform his final rites,” Mehnaaz said.
She said that on Sunday around 9 a.m. Arif called her and they spoke for a few minutes. “He hung up the phone stating he will call back in half an hour but I did not get any call from him. He was not answering to my repeated calls, and I grew suspicious,” she said.
Soon, she called her husband’s sister in Australia who informed her about the stabbing. “There is no family member around him now. His body is at the hospital,” Mehnaaz said.
Immigration papers of Mehnaaz and her newborn were pending, and her husband is already a permanent resident card holder there.
Mohammed Ghouse, a techie from Georgia who is coordinating with the authorities and Arif’s family here told The Hindu that further details about the attackers can be known only on Wednesday.
“Police told me that the investigation is still on and they cannot come to a conclusion at this moment. A few people were taken into custody,” he said.
Mr. Ghouse, who stays one hour away from Thomaston city, said that as per the initial report, two Indians, and one US citizen are suspected to be involved in the crime. Arif’s body is in the crime lab for investigation.
