Police suspect illicit relations behind murder of 6 members of family

AJMER: The Bhilwara police on Thursday facilitated the last rites of six members of a family - a couple and their four children - who were hacked to death by their neighbour and his friend. The last were performed in Bhilwara as no one came forward to claim the bodies. During preliminary investigation, it has come up that apart from the suspicion of black magic, the motive behind the murder could be illicit relationship between the accused's father and the victim's wife who was hacked to death.
Suspecting his neighbour of causing his father's death by casting a spell of black magic, Sharafat Ali Khan, a resident of Chittorgarh district, had killed Yunus (35), his wife Sonia (32) and their four children Ahsraf (10), Gudiya (5), Ashima (3) and Sakeena (1). Sharafat was helped by his friend Rajesh in the crime. Both the accused were arrested.
Sources said that after the post-mortem, all the six bodies were cremated in Bhilwara. Though some relatives of Yunus had come to attend the last rites, no one came forward to claim the bodies. Therefore, the police had to arrange for last rites, said a police official.
The police said that a team was sent to Nembaheda in Chittorgarh to investigate the matter. The team found that accused Sharafat was suspicious of illicit relations between his father Saleem and Sonia, wife of Yunus.
"As both (Saleem and Sonia) are deceased, we are not taking up this issue further, but people stated this in their statements," said police.
They said that during investigation, they also found that Yunus resorted to using black magic when he came to know about this matter.
When Saleem died last month, Sharafat thought he died due to black magic.
Sharafat then invited Yunus and his family to Ajmer on Sunday to attend a ritual on the 40th day of Saleem's death. Sharafat, his friend Rajesh Khateek and Yunus's family left for Ajmer. On Monday night, when Yunus and Sonia got down from the car to attend the nature's call at Mandal, Sharafat followed them and stabbed them to death. Sharafat and Rajesh drove the children to a distance, then killed them and threw their bodies in Raisinghpura pond, which is 40 kilometres away from where the bodies of Yunus and Sonia were recovered.