Altaf Warekar, cousin of Thane mass murder accused Hasnain Warekar, is struggling to come to terms with the turn of events on Sunday.
Hasnain (35), a resident of Kasarvadavli village in Thane, is said to have killed his parents, wife, child, sisters as well as their children, after which he is said to have hanged himself. The Kasarvadavli police are investigating the incident.
Altaf (36), who stays in a house across the road from Hasnain, was one of the first to reach the spot after Subiya, the sole survivor of the massacre, started screaming for help. Altaf’s shock is rooted in the fact that he had met Hasnain only hours ago, and he had seemed perfectly normal.
“I met Hasnain at around 11.30 pm on Saturday, when I was on my way to meet some friends in the locality. He was walking towards his house with a plastic bag in his hands. I asked him where he was coming from, and he replied saying he was on his way home after getting some soft drinks as there was a daawat underway. His daawats were well known as he would always call his sisters home on most weekends, so I just nodded my head and we went our separate ways,” Altaf told The Hindu .
In the early hours of Sunday morning, Altaf was one of the first to woken by Subiya's screams for help. Alarmed, he ran to the ground floor window to check what was happening.
“Subiya told me, ‘ Bhaijaan ne sabko maar diya, woh mujhko bhi maar denge (Brother has killed everyone, he will kill me too). I immediately thought of the calm, silent person I had met hours ago, and though it was my sister telling me this, I found it hard to believe. I told her to come out. She said she was afraid to move as Hasnain was standing near the front door with the qurbaani knife in his hand,” Altaf said.
For nearly half-an-hour, Altaf and his friends pulled apart the window grill, while two others sped to the Kasar Wadavli police station on a motorbike.
Subiya was pulled out of the window in a near unconscious state, while the police sent armed personnel in case Hasnain tried attacking anyone who tried to enter. Hasnain, however, had killed himself by then.
“Hasnain grew up in front of me. Every single person in the family knows him as a boy who would speak to his elders with his eyes lowered and the village can vouch that he has never been in a single fight in his life. But if my own sister says he killed 14 people, including children, all I can do is try to believe it,” Altaf added.
Every family member knows him as a boy who would speak to his elders with his eyes lowered
Altaf,
Hasnain's cousin
