Irfan case — Police team didn’t leave yesterday

Niyogi admitted that the recovery of Irfan’s car and cellphone was crucial to the case and the media reports might have alerted those men. “But we could not wait as these gangsters were involved in the killing of industrialist Vijay Arora and that had been solved,” he said.

Despite the fact that the police did not have anything to back their claim, they had announced that these gangsters were the ones who had killed Irfan. Commissioner of Police Ajai Raj Sharma had offered an elementary explanation at the press conference yesterday evening:

The gang of seven was lying in wait for cars occupied by not more than one person. Irfan was alone and they targeted it at the red light near Ghazipur. The fuel pipe located near the left tyre was disconnected and a pencil inserted into the tube to stop petrol flow completely.

As planned, the car came to a halt a short distance away. Irfan was rushed into the bushes nearby where he was brutally stabbed up to 28 times, (The reason, the cops say, was Irfan resisted and “abused the car-jackers”), tied up and then had his neck slit. His car and belongings were then taken away.

Despite the 264 days that the police took to acheive this breakthrough the facts remain blurred with a number of pertinent questions remain. These are the facts that don’t match the police’s latest theory.

n Irfan called his wife Muneera at 10:40 p.m. that night. The first thing he said was: “Don’t cut the call, keep talking.” He said he was near Mayur Vihar and would be back home in 15 minutes. “It did not sound normal. He kept repeating whatever I asked him about things like dinner. Besides I could hear a strange sound of shifting of the seat,” said Muneera. Five minutes later when she called back, the phone had been switched off.

*Initial investigations baffled the police as the call was four minutes long when he said he had crossed Mayur Vihar and was approaching the UP border. The police then said in four minutes, he would have entered UP.

* Irfan’s family received up to 40 blank calls the next day. The first call was made at 8:30 p.m on Tuesday. Not a single blank call was received after the body was discovered.

* “His clothes have no tears or rips. They were probably taken off and he was tortured for a few hours. After that he was killed. His feet and hands were tied only later,” said the doctor in the team that conducted the post-mortem.

From the beginning, it was apparent that the the police were working on a car-jacking angle since they were not successful in finding any other motive. A month and a half before Irfan was murdered, his car was hit by a Ford Escort near Safdarjung flyover. The three youth were drunk and got into a fight with him. He chased them, hit one of the boys and handed them over to the police. The fight took place in front of a crowd and a PCR van had come onto the spot. Irfan had even discussed the matter with his friends. The police could not even trace the persons involved as there was no case registered.